Valentine's Week: PruAus One-shots
by Mayumi Sato
Summary: A series of one-shots that I made based on requests on my personal tumblr with my absolutely favorite pairing.
1. Chapter 1

I wanna thank miss Zeplerfer so much for her help with the translation of this work! I'm still quite insecure about my writting style in english and I can't thank her enough. She's totally awesome and any mistakes that you may find here are totally my fault. Sorry. Also, it would be very, very nice of you to give me some support since I really need it to keep doing my job. I would be very grateful. Anyway, I wish you a wonderful reading and a lovely day. Take care ~

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_**Request by anon: Omegaverse story showing the first meeting of the characters. **_

01\. (In)dependence.

If someone asked Gilbert Beilschmidt, he would say that he preferred ten thousand times more to live with alphas than with omegas.

A statement like that could cause shocked and horrified exclamations, since alphas were more common and less romanticized than omegas, but if people stopped to analyze his motives, they would see that this was a very legitimate and very reasonable thing to say.

It wasn't like Gilbert had a bias against omegas. In fact, it was the opposite. A bias arises from ignorance and he knew way more than enough about the omega's routine and the advantages and disadvantages of living with them. After all, he was the adopted son of a couple of omegas, with a younger brother who was also an omega and he was a beta.

Yep, he could already have his own reality show.

Being the only beta in a omega family was a total pain. They were so much work! An omega had two heats per year. Gilbert had to endure six. No one measured the consequences of being a omega couple adopting an omega child and as much as Gilbert loved his parents and his brother with all his heart, damn, how they exhausted him.

An omega in heat became extremely dependent on other people. Alphas were biologically equipped to deal with their clinginess. They could identify the needs of a omega using their sense of smell and they didn't mind staying glued to their omegas all day and everyday because they were too horny and/or protective of them to care about it. It was a purely instinctive behaviour.

An omega couple did not have these advantages. On the other hand, they knew very well what the other needed, since they had personal experience with what your partner was going through. Another advantage of a omega couple would be the calm kindness they showed when they had to take care of each other. The protective instincts and libido of alphas could be very pleasant and convenient for omegas at certain times. However, it left them in a continuous state of agitation that didn't allow them to be reasonable in the moments when the need arose.

Of course, omega couples also had their own problems. Starting with the fact that each of them would experience two heats per year, which mathematically represented a greater number of times that incredibly annoying period extended. Thanks to that, when Gilbert was not being an official nurse to his parents and his younger brother, he had to check on the stocks of blankets and pillows for nests and how much snack food, bottles of water and sex toys they had – **since, apparently, an omega was so horny and needy that he was unable to drop his partner for a second even if it was to let him buy something that he definitely shouldn't be asking his child to buy, urgh, Gilbert really deserved a break**. It was never too early to have those concerns because it was a matter of weeks before another family member entered his heat and when that time came, it would be more way complicated to leave the place to buy those items in the middle of the storm that formed inside the house during a heat. And when the heat of one of them arrived early and ended up merging with the other's?! Certainly, there must be a special circle in hell for evil betas, where a lot of omega have their heats at the same time. Yeah, it was that bad.

He was a beta, the most sensible and controlled of the types. Since ancient times, the betas have always played an role of official guardian of an omega in heat. I mean, alphas were the ones knotting in omegas and yelling at anyone who dared to interrupt them, but if not for the betas, alphas and omegas would get dehydrated and malnourished to the point of getting sick... Seriously. In summary, one could say that they had to endure this bullshit during all the history of the world. Alphas and omegas only caught the fun parts and the work was left to betas.

Gilbert Beilschmidt lived in this hectic routine from age twelve to eighteen. From the year in which his parents thought he was old enough to help them, to the year he left home to go to a dorm room at a college in another state.

As an act of respect to his relatives, he spent a few minutes at the beginning of his train trip feeling bad for his parents and his brother and worrying about how they would adjust without him. But this moment of concern for his family didn't have the strength to stay there for too long. Sorry to his parents and brother, but, bah!, he was sure they would arrange some way to take care of themselves! The most important thing was that Gilbert was finally free. Free as a singing bird! HA, HA, HA ...! I mean, hm, that was an important sign of maturity of the eldest son of the Beilschmidts and so that should be enough to cheer them! Yep, yep. No need to feel guilty for that elation he was experiencing! He should enjoy the party as much as he could! For his parents!

Just as he had planned during registration, Gilbert was able to surround himself with alphas and betas at college. His roommate was another beta named Arthur Kirkland, whose circle of friends consisted mainly of alphas who were introduced to Beilschmidt and matched him incredibly well. Life with Arthur and his new friends was simple and fantastic. No job as a nurse for a week every two months. No ongoing concerns about heats arriving earlier or later than they should. No need to be checking the stock of food, water, clean blankets and sex toys for emergencies. He just needed to care about himself and, within certain limits, about Arthur.

Man, now that was life!

Gilbert wouldn't mind living like that forever!

He wouldn't but ...

"_I'm moving to Alfred's house before his next heat. Although we can't be mates, __I must take care of him as an alpha normally would. I'm a gentleman, after all._".

BOOOOOOOOOOOM!

Just like that, within seconds, all Gilbert's short and medium-term plans suffered a drastic modification.

Oh shit.

That was not good news. That was not good at all.

Let me explain better: right when he entered college, Gilbert didn't have a reputation. Therefore, the selection criteria for his roommate was purely based on type compatibility because no one knew if his personality would match well with alphas or omegas. Like all other freshmen, he received a general treatment, created to simplify the possible combinations of roommates.

That was the past. In his sixth semester, he was no longer an anonymous face on campus.

Gilbert Beilschmidt was a beta student with the highest grades in his class, who was once considered as a plausible option for the class speaker and rebutted only because the dean concluded that it would be less risky to set off fireworks in the middle of the ceremony rather than let him take on such a important position.

Gilbert was organized, independent and someone who never expressed the remotest interest in the college's omegas, which meant basically ...

Fucking hell. People would try so hard to push an omega on him.

Exaggeration?

That's what they would see.

...

No sooner said than done, everything went as expected.

Arthur had not even finished moving when proposals for Gilbert to stay with many omegas began to fill his mailbox. People didn't wasted time and Gilbert found himself, on more than one night, with his face buried in his hands, grunting plaintively in front of his computer while the icon of his inbox jumped up and down with its growing number every twenty minutes.

It was ironic that Beilschmidt, who finally thought was free from a life as an omega's nanny, now was being almost hunted by them.

To make things even worse, his refusal to live with an omega only aroused more interest from omegas to have him as a roommate. This kind was so plagued by gross alphas that a legitimately indifferent beta seemed to be the best company they could get and Gilbert's popularity grew with every refusal. Also, kinds or not, let's be honest, Gilbert Beilschmidt (in his relevant and totally sensible opinion) was fantastic. He could not blame those omegas for wanting his invaluable company. I guess that if he was in the same position as them, he would also go around punching people for the chance of living with someone that awesome! Heh!

Anyway, this hell lasted for about two and a half weeks without pauses or any progress, but on a Wednesday, he saw a slightly different approach.

It came from an alpha girl who was captain of the volleyball team - a veteran who was one year older than Gilbert and someone with whom he had his debts and a good friendship.

"I heard that you're looking for a new roommate," Lizzy said, sitting in front of him in the cafeteria, bringing a portion of rice and mashed potatoes that almost reached the height of her head.

Gilbert simply shrugged, shaking his head sideways, closing his eyes and distilling arrogance in the smile that was formed on the edges of his lips.

"To be honest, it's the new roommates who are looking for me, but proceed," he said, giving a short and satisfied laugh at his own joke.

Too bad Lizzy was so boring and didn't pay any attention to his clever joke.

"I think I know someone with whom you would get along very well," she said, not losing her focus or the strange determined glint in his green eyes.

"Alpha or Beta?" he asked suspiciously, raising an eyebrow. There was something strange there. If Lizzy really had found someone who could work with him, there would be no need for this suspenseful scene. He knew that girl. If there wasn't any "BUT" on that line in bold letters and flashing a red alert, she would have just said "Hey! I found this guy to be your roommate! What do you think?" Lizzy didn't not show all this pomp and circumstance unless …

"Omega."

He didn't even blink before responding:

"Not a freaking chance."

"Why, come on! You haven't heard me yet!" she exclaimed, pounding the table with both fists, making the dishes jump a little. Grains of rice from Lizzy's plate flew everywhere and a small amount of Gilbert's soup fell on the table, dripping and almost falling on his leg.

Oh, shit! Damn Lizzy and her brutal force! Tsk!

"It makes no difference," he said, trying to ignore the small degree of fear that had appeared in his voice but his eyes were still staring at the hot liquid and orange on the table with some amazement and he changed places, taking his plate from the table for security reasons. "Omegas are a burden..." he added, feeling that it was better to give some explanation for his motives.

Lizzy made a sound of frustration, angrily filling her cheeks of air, like a spoiled six years old who wanted to have a toy at any cost.

"He can be a bit hard to deal with, I confess," she admitted grudgingly. Somehow, she managed to keep her full cheeks as she spoke and was looking funnier than it should. "However, he has certain qualities that suit you." She has to take an enthusiastic and optimistic air in the best imitation of an advertising girl "He prepares great desserts, is also studying music and he's a guy extremely ... Huh ... Sincere! Just like you!"

Wait a second. What that suspicious pause meant?

"What was this pause before "sincere"?" He frowned disapproving at each new part of that whole deal.

She crossed her arms over her chest and began to move her eyes to random spots on the ceiling.

"He can be too honest," she said in a tone that made it clear that this was a euphemism for "_This guy is ruder than Grumpy on a bad Monday._" The candid smile she added didn't change her main message. "This is a terrible and unbearable flaw for most people, but I think you will get along because you are similar to him in this aspect."

"Pfff! Lizzy, thank goodness you're doing Biochemistry, not Law!" He laughed extensively, waving his hand on a playfully mood "You need to dramatically improve your persuasiveness! You realize that your argument to convince me to live with this guy was basically "_most people wouldn't like to live with him_"!

"Gilbert, you owe me for everything I did when you were a freshman! This omega is my childhood friend and I want the best for him! Strangely enough, that means to live with you! Now promise me you will at least call him. I want you to talk to him before dismissing him entirely."

"Talk to him or not. What difference does it make?"

It made a huge difference.

He had his debts to settle with Lizzy and didn't want her to keep bothering him with that annoying stuff, so he made a deal with her and promised to call this guy before rejecting him. However, he never promised a long call with some deep emotional talk for the establishment of a beautiful friendship.

Gilbert's original plan was divided into three stages. Step 01: "Hello." Step 02: "Sorry, dude." Step 03: "Bye." He didn't even consider the possibility that the omega had anything to say beyond the common and repetitive lines he had heard a billion of times from other potential roommates.

Neither did he think that before he even initiated step 01, the omega would cut him off, rushing to say:

"Mr. Beilschmidt, I'm not that patient to the point of submitting myself to any moving speech that you have prepared for all the omegas or to waste my time only to be rejected by you. Please, don't bother to give me your repetitive lines and unnecessary excuses. I will have you know that I'm the only omega child of a family almost entirely composed of alphas and I'm used to being pampered and treated with due reverence."

...

...

Er ... What?

Huh?

The fuck?

What the hell had just happened?

It was so sudden and unexpected that Gilbert froze for the first few seconds.

After a very awkward pause, he finally found his words. "Hold on there. I didn't even say anything yet!"

"Hmpf. I don't need to hear it," replied the voice on the other end of the phone. It was clear and smooth, like the voice of a electronic assistant but endowed with such a thick layer of arrogance that it was hard to remember that he was the guy who was allegedly asking a favor there. "I know your reputation and I can assume that you would be pretentious if I gave any opening for it." Then, before Gilbert decided whether he should or not say 'Well, fuck you too!' and hang up the phone in the face of that idiot, the guy made a 'Tsk' and said something that definitively caught his attention. "Betas. Always so arrogant, thinking that because you're immune to our pheromones, you are the most reasonable and rational beings of the Earth."

Wow. That stereotype was so offensive!

"Hey! It's not like that!" he protested in outrage.

"Am I mistaken?" asked the snobby voice in a partially ironic tone that made it almost feel like a rhetorical question "Isn't this your way of thinking?"

No, it was not like ...! Well, okay, he may have thought something along these lines, but it was not like that! He was not having a superiority complex! It was simply a fact that betas had the characteristic of being more reasonable and rational than the alphas and omegas because they were not involved in that biological mess! Just because that was true it didn't mean that ...!

Oh.

That was exactly what the snobbish voice had said that he thought.

He facepalmed hard, thinking he was lucky that the other guy couldn't see him at that moment.

**Fuck. **

"Anyway, if you hate betas so much, why do you want to live with me?" he asked in a forced casual manner.

"I already told you." The omega gave an impatient sigh. "I come from a family of alphas and I want to be pampered."

"Then go and get some alpha!" Gilbert shouted without hesitation.

"Alphas are despicable!"

"Huh?"

"They do not care for an omega by pure altruism," the omega complained, sounding very disgusted with the idea Somehow, it was like he was reporting a horrifying scientific discovery. "I was shocked to see that their notion of caring for an omega in the heat involves sex and knotting. Also, it's amazing they change their attitude entirely after discovering that you have no intention of being their mate." He huffed in exasperation, creating a brief sizzle on the line. "This is a major inconvenience. I don't want to get into a romantic relationship with one of them. Alphas don't appeal to me in that way."

"_Alphas don't appeal to me in that way._"

Again, a particular line of this young lord was like a bait that caught Gilbert and pulled him in with a strange force.

That guy was an omega who didn't feel attracted to alphas. Huh ... interesting.

Most omegas who wanted to live with him were attracted to alphas and only wanted him as their guardian. It was interesting to see that this young lord had a different sexual orientation and Gilbert had to recognize that something about that statement fanned a spark of interest on him. An omega attracted to other omegas. It was like the case of his parents.

"Let me see if I got everything right." He took a deep breath, pressing the bridge of his nose while closing his discussion was following an increasingly unpredictable and weird direction. He needed time to make some mental notes. "You are an omega who doesn't like alphas and betas ..." he said slowly. "Yet your complaint about the betas is that we are too arrogant about our kind."

In saying this, what Gilbert wanted to imply was that Roderich was basically saying that omegas were the only noble type while at the same time condemning betas for doing the same thing and that made no sense.

"Precisely."

Disregarding any implied criticism, this was a clear and instant response of the young lord.

What the actual fuck.

"Are you really going to ignore the huge contradiction in what you just said?!"

"What contradiction?" He asked in a confused tone. **Confused**.

URGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

"Forget it, forget it!" He shook his head quickly sideways in a dismissive gesture. "Listen, aristocrat, I still don't get the most important question. You've been offending me since I answered the phone. Why exactly do you even want to live with me?"

"Oh, that's a good question. Actually, miss Elizaveta informed me that you came from a family of omegas..."

Ah, so that was it. The young lord was an omega who wanted to be pampered and he thought that Gilbert Beilschmidt, being the only beta in a family of omegas, had probably become a guy of ancient wisdom with endless kindness and patience that was a patron for the defenseless omegas.

So in the end, there was a similar point between that dude and the other omegas that Gilbert Beilschmidt had known. He couldn't tell if that was a relief, a disappointment or both.

"Yes, I came from a omega family," he growled, unwilling to say anything else. "So what?"

"It must have been a living hell."

U-um, the typical speech that it must have been wonderful to live surrounded by so many angelic beings and ... Wait. What?

This was the first time in his twenty-three years of existence in which Gilbert Beilschmidt heard someone talk about his family that way.

He was definitely interested in hearing more.

"What?"

"Am I mistaken?" asked the aristocrat, using again that voice of someone who knew the answer to his own question.

"No, but..." He took a breath and licked his lips. While his predominant feeling was of astonishment, he also was kind of amazed by what he was hearing. "I didn't think you'd say that. I mean, people always say that it must have been fantastic to be created by a family consisting only of omegas ..."

"These people are fools." Those were the ruthless and direct words of the young lord. Despite how evil they were, they caused a inner satisfaction in Gilbert. He had never had a chance to hear something that actually coincided with his own feelings on this issue and he felt like the young lord was saying everything that he would say if he were not too fond of his family to offend them openly. "Omegas require constant care and attention. I wouldn't bear to live with one of them, let alone an entire family."

"I thought omegas were the best kind on the world to you?"

"When did I say that?"

"Well, young lord, that was my conclusion after you've came with all that speech about how alphas and betas are horrible and being a omega is the best thing ever!"

"You are mistaken. I don't think that the omegas are better than betas and alphas and I didn't say that at any moment. In my view, all kinds have their detestable traits and each one is terrible in different ways. I enjoy being an omega to be flattered by alphas and betas. However, I would hate to have the company of an omega, sucking the attention and energy that should be devoted to me, since I know how laborious we can be during our heats."

"Hm... Are you still trying to convince me to be your roommate?" Gilbert had to ask. "Because I'm seriously confused about this."

"I am." Coming from the young lord, the confidence of that response wasn't even impressive anymore.

"And what is your argument?"

"If you managed to survive within a family of omegas, you must be one of the few people in this world with the capacity to endure living together with me, while not passing our relationship to a sexual level."

"All right, cool, and what do **I **gain in this deal?"

"My company. I'm a very pleasant person."

This legitimately caught Gilbert by surprise and he almost choked with the laughter that went down his throat, pushing so hard down his chest that he needed to rely on the table to keep from falling on the floor laughing.

"Pfff! Goddamnit! I was not prepared for this one! Damn, young lord!" he exclaimed with the breath he could muster, laughing as if he would never stop.

"I do not understand what's so laughable in my words."

This comment logically only increased the duration of Gilbert Beilschmidt of laughter, causing it to be extended at full speed.

"You?!" he said in a tone that's exaggerated astonishment had an obvious intention of debauchery. "Pleasant?!"

"Hmpf. Very well." The aristocrat briefly showed resignation about that matter. "I believe my qualities were not properly presented, which is giving you this gross misconception that I'm not a nice person, so I think I can display them more clearly by telling you my story."

"I don't want to hear your story!" he protested, but was interrupted very conclusive and firmly.

"In which part of my sentence did you heard a question mark?" that was the (unbelievable) phrase the aristocrat said before taking advantage of the silence, resulting from Gilbert's jaw dropping to the floor, to start his narrative without delay "I was born on a rainy morning of November at a private hospital..."

The history of the aristocrat took two and a half hours to complete and, for some reason, Gilbert didn't hang up the phone until the end of it.

Honestly, he only considered leaving at the very beginning but after listening to the young lord, whose name was Roderich Eldestein, for some time, he end up realizing that the biography of the young lord did have some unexpectedly interesting points. Without noticing, he started to pay more and more attention to it, gradually sinking in the narration, so immersed on it that its conclusion left him slightly dazed, as if he was waking from a dream.

Despite the steady and calm indifference of the voice on the other end of the line, Gilbert got really into that peculiar history full of witty comments and filled with the unique aspect of its main character and narrator. He weakly experienced a great number of different feelings, as if he was present in all situations that Roderich presented with apparent carelessness. He laughed, cursed, said some "Shit, man." with sincere and strong pity. He sighed, rolled his eyes, snorted ... Until finally Roderich stopped talking for a particularly long series of seconds and after a while, noticing that he should do something to break the tense silence between them, he concluded with a "Those are my points and I believe we need to say goodbye here," leading Gilbert to finally realize that they were not on the phone with friends, on a date or call had a purpose and, technically, its main purpose wasn't to create a link between them. It was only a call from another omega he had to reject and who would soon seek other roommates.

He was aware of it. It was normal. Still, it was a little unfortunate to have to turn off that phone, knowing that from that moment, his moment of interaction with the young lord would be officially over and Gilbert Beilschmidt would return to his ordinary days, not ever finding a omega, or rather anyone regardless of type, with that young master's personality. He would keep rejecting other omegas and looking for a relatively cool alpha or beta to live with it. That conversation with Rod was intense, but there was no reason for them to have contact again, being better for both parties that they didn't prolong their communications, as misunderstandings could arise from a deepening of their connection. Rod was looking for a place to live and Gilbert didn't want him to confuse the emergence of a greater intimacy between the two as an authorization for him to come live in his home. In addition, Rod would be so mad if Gilbert created this wrong impression that they would never talk again after that even if they could.

Well, honestly, it sucked, but what could be done? Alright, Rod was funny, extremely direct and honest, unique, interesting and fascinating in a special way, but he was a goddamn omega and Gilbert Beilschmidt never would willing return to living with omegas. No way. Out of question.

Even if said omega had left him a little, just a little tempted about that hypothesis.

To be fair, on the first night after this conversation, Gilbert didn't take seriously the weight that lodged in his chest and the anxiety that settled in after that phone call was finished. Okay, so what that he had met an omega who was extraordinary in every sense of the word and he was kind of impressed with that, noting with amazement and alarm that the young lord had a personality that ... welll, it was kinda attractive to him?

No big deal! Impressions are impressions. They are temporary and fleeting. Although at the time, he was strongly containing his urge to call Lizzy and tell her that the aristocrat should visit him immediately, he certainly would forget that story in a short time and laugh at all the absurdities that have passed through his head. Oh, man. He would laugh so much that story. Definitely! HA, HA, HA!

Okay, maybe not tomorrow, but maybe in two days. Maybe three. Five was the lucky number!

A week elapsed before Gilbert surrendered to the fact that he had a slight crush on that pompous aristocrat and that if he didn't confront it early, he would be seriously screwed.

These things happen! Sometimes talking to a person for the first time has this kind of effect on us. It is the charm of the new or something. The young lord had a remarkable and amazing personality. It was normal that he left Gilbert drawn at a first impression over the phone. No reason to worry. Everything was fine. The situation was manageable. He would talk to Lizzy to schedule a personal meeting between him and the aristocrat in front of the college library in the morning and after that, his expectations would fall apart as an analgesic dropped in a soda.

Seeing Roderich personally, the fascination would flow down the drain. This time, he was conscious and prepared to look at the young master and realize that he was not all he was thinking. A personal encounter was all he needed to overcome that regular fall ...

Or so he thought and muttered to himself, staring at the floor until a familiar voice invited his eyes to rise.

"Hello," said a guy with glasses, wearing elegant and gray clothes and a red scarf, who was seriously the most sexy and most similar to a super-model person that Gilbert had seen closely in the real world. While the eyes of his viewer widened and his mouth suffered severe difficulties in finding a permanent position, the attractive guy made a little bow to greet him. "You must be Mr. Beilschmidt."

FUCK.

THAT WAS SO UNFAIR. Rod should not be that physically attractive! Gilbert was not counting on this at all and now all his determination to deny his attraction to him disappeared as his eyes followed several different and random routes in order to escape at all costs from the aristocrat right in front of him.

Rod shouldn't look so hot with that dark brown pompous hair that only looked good on him and maybe the nobility of the nineteenth century! He should not have that face with lines harmoniously arranged, eyes of a very deep blue, that mole that drew attention to his mouth, those long legs that made him a few inches taller than Gilbert and that body posture so gracious and imposing simultaneously. This was proof that the universe was doomed to chaos and composed of strange elements that would never be fully understood by men. From all appearances, he had to be a super-model with a slightly nerdy attitude that was totally Gilbert's type. That was so damn unfair.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

"Yes of course! The one and only!" Gilbert said, recovering from his initial shock and pumping his fists into the air in flaming enthusiasm. He couldn't show the internal hurricane that was going on inside him. He had a great image to maintain! "The pleasure is sixty percent yours and forty percent mine." Oh, man, that was great! He had dominated the conversation with a grand introduction that should cause at least one "OH!" mesmerized reaction from the aristocrat.

Still, unexpectedly, the young lord had not a single lapse in the impassivity of his expression. His complete lack of reaction came to be a little offensive to Gilbert since his sense of humor didn't receive the appreciation its deserved.

"Don't waste my time that way," Rod demanded, confronting his potential roommate directly. "I know you called me here to reject me personally and let me say that I refuse to be part of such a ridiculous role. My pride would not allow a rejection coming from you. I will reject myself by my own. Goodbye."

Right after this short monologue, he turned his back on Gilbert Beilschmidt and started walking in the opposite direction, as if their business were solved.

Huh? What? How? Did that really happened? Roderich greeted him, then he freaking rejected himself on his own and now was going away? Wow! That was pretty much the aristocratic version of the "Hello", "Sorry there" and "Bye" plan.

"Hey, wait a second! Calm down here!" Gilbert yelled, feeling a wave of relief when he noticed that it had been enough for the young lord to stop at the point where he was, also showing some curiosity about that emphatic interruption, which implied that he wasn't completely prepared for it. "Why the hell are you making that decision as if I am to blame for it?! I literally said nothing!"

"That was not necessary. I know what you would say." He was harsh and dry in his hurried answer. Moreover, he seemed a little overconfident in his belief in what Gilbert had to say.

"Surprise for you, Rod!" he replied excitedly, opening his arms extensively. "You don't always know what people are thinking because you are not a telepath. Welcome to the real world!"

"Oh, what you're saying is that you invited me here to say that we can live together and you're eager for my company?" He made this a sarcastic question, using his classic rhetorical question tone, easily translated into "I-know-what-you-will-tell-me-and-have-no-doubts-about-that-and-I-am-not-really-asking-a-question".

That was so irritating. I mean, okay. Gilbert's initial plan was to reject the proposal of them living together and all that. Yet it was pretty annoying that he didn't had the opening to think about that question! Who was that aristocrat to tell Gilbert what he would say?! If he were to reject it, he would have done that on his own! No way that he would give Rod the satisfaction of simply confirming what the aristocrat had deduced that he would say! Now it was not just a matter of "I want to spend more time with him ~" and "Damn, I need to bring this attractive guy to my room." It was a matter of personal honor!

So Rod thought he knew all the answers, huh?! HA! He would see how mistaken he was! He would need to go through a long and hard training in the mountains if he wanted to get a third of the necessary ability of perception to guess the movements of Gilbert Beilschmidt.

This was the last straw in a cup of boiling feelings and Gilbert finally reacted to them and with clenched fists, twisted facial features and eyes burning with determination, he yelled "YES, I DID!" so hard it made Roderich move back a few steps.

"Huh?" this was the low and confused sound of the aristocrat. Following this, Roderich was left with his mouth half open and walk slightly wobbly, as if seeking a new sense of balance after a radical change in Earth's gravity. Apparently, he was not ready for that answer!

HA!

"You heard me..." He breathed in and out a few times to decrease the temperature of his indignation and he calmed down a bit. On the other hand, his resolution remained firm and strong, like the way his eyes stayed glued on Rod. "Let's move in together, you nerd," he practically murmured, gathering strength to make his decision.

Rod blinked repeatedly. Repeatedly. In his eyes, there was now an innocent and almost helpless glow similar to the one you would find on a child who doesn't understand what he did wrong that caused the anger of his parents.

"... I do not understand," he finally managed to say in a voice that expressed a shock of unimaginable proportions.

What was so incomprehensible about that?

"What?"

"Why do you want to live with me?" he asked. Assuming an air more suspicious and natural to his temperament, he began an aggressive interrogation. "What do you have to gain from it? Money? Power?"

Seriously?!

LIKE, FOR REALl?!

"Why do you need to turn every single thing into a conspiracy theory?!" Gilbert yelled in frustration, putting his hands on both sides of his head as if it could fly out his body if he didn't hold it in.

"Of course, I must suspect a decision like that! If you are so offended by my suspicions, then justify your actions!"

_Because you're a guy with a strangely captivating personality, interesting qualities and you're, like, super-hyper-mega-attractive, so I can't be rational enough around you to see how my idea is terrible in a long-term perspective when I'm being distracted by your appearance and when my greatest desire is to grab your waist and press you against the nearest wall to kiss you until you lose your breath, because my head is not working at the right way and I'm really fascinated with you, even if you can be quite annoying at times. I'm getting to the point of seeing your flaws as something that makes part of the construction of your unique personality and that's stupid, I know, but at the same time it is very difficult to contain this sort of thing and I'm confused and stressed, but I'm so interested in your noble figure that living with you is a too tempting idea and I can't weigh the consequences like that. And also because..._

Because, young lord, when we begin to live with someone, we can get disappointed after knowing each other better. But you? I'm expecting your worst and the only thing that could amaze me would be any good thing to appear in our living together!"

He was (partially) sincere. Luckily, his (partial) honesty was enough to convince Rod.

"Surprisingly, you have a good point." He sounded impressed, putting a hand on his chin.

"As I respect the difficulties of comprehension of the ignorant, I will ignore your "surprisingly" because I imagine that you still have not knowledge enough to know how brilliant my points are on a daily basis, young lord." Seeing how Rod opened his mouth with an offended air, Gilbert was sure of the efficiency of his glorious teasing answer. Entertained and laughing briefly, he interrupted Rod before he expressed his ill-humor, raising an eyebrow and put his hands in his trouser pockets to ask clearly and directly. "So? We have a agreement?"

"Yes, I will bring my belongings to you room tomorrow," he said in a discreet and charming contentment with just the hint of a smile, making Gilbert need to use his repression mechanism immediately.

_Don't think too much of it, don't think too much of it. He is going to your room because you live in a room. Your whole house is a room. That's just semantics._

"Okay, Rod! See you tomorrow!"

He was already waving and cursing internally as he asked himself what the hell he had done and how he had allowed to fall - in fact, practically thrown himself - in such an obvious trap when he was interrupted by a miraculously friendly question of the young lord.

"Don't you want to have some coffee with me now?"

What.

"... Huh? What's this?" he asked, frowning, feeling lost in the face of an unexpected request like that. He was so perplexed that didn't even know how to feel about it. "Is this a implicit rule of the nobility or something like that?"

"No, you fool. I just wish to have a bit more of your company in this afternoon." Then, probably noticing the giant question mark that had spread itself all across Gilbert's face, Roderich asked honestly surprised and confused. "Why are you so shocked?"

"Hey, don't blame me for being surprised!" he defended himself. "I thought you were coming to live with me because you had no other options. Didn't you say that you don't like betas?!"

Would he deny his own words? Had he changed his mind? His perception of the world had changed so much in a week?

"No, I said that I dislike the traces of all kinds in general."

Oh, Rod. That guy was the charisma in person.

"Okay, Miss Congeniality, that doesn't explain anything." Gilbert frowned hard at him, showing that he had no patience to go around in circles about that question.

"One of you faults, Mr. Beilschmidt, is that you make assumptions before knowing the facts. The truth is that I could live alone if I really needed to. I should clarify. My parents strongly recommended that I live with someone but if I didn't find a roommate to my liking, I could very well live in a bachelor flat. Do understand that I'm communicating this because I don't want you to make a mistake and think I'm going to your room because I'm desperate." He stressed the word "desperate" with a pungent disgust momentarily twitching the corners of his mouth, rolling his eyes in a way that showed that he thought that this mental image was extremely pathetic. "The reason I'm moving in with you, Beilschmidt, is because I have positive expectations about it. There is something about you that I find intriguing and I think watching your routine will be as interesting as watching a documentary about the wildlife."

Oh, no.

Now Gilbert's heart was pounding like crazy.

Ignoring the part about a documentary about the wildlife, what remained was that Roderich also had some interest in their life together. It was an interest similar to what he should have watching Animal Planet but still ... Wow. Gilbert was unable to slow down the frequency of his heart beats when reminded of those words, thinking about its meaning and its remote possibility. Forced to see the young lord presenting a friendliness, though restrained, joy filled his chest with something warm, tender and risky.

Rod was interested on him. He was interested in Rod. The potential of that would be wonderful if their interests were not of very different natures and if the prospect of going out with him wasn't absurd for many reasons.

It was painful to see how close and how far they were to have a chance together.

"Oh, don't worry, Rod. I know it's impossible not to love me.." he tried to play, hoping the Rod wouldn't detect the nervousness that escaped in his laughter.

Obviously, he didn't notice it and once again showed his good disposition on a very moderated way.

"I hope we can get along, sir Beilschmidt," this was his final comment on this issue.

That said, Rod turned and waved for Gilbert to follow him, which was somewhat fortunate, because Gilbert Beilschmidt only allowed himself to show his vulnerability to Roderich's back.

"I hope so too, Rod," he said seriously, gravely and with a camouflaged apprehension, knowing that the insensitive aristocrat would never detect the subtle signs of his true emotions while he was not even looking at his face. Shit, man. Gilbert was so, so screwed. "Good luck to us."

Especially me, he thought.


	2. Chapter 2

Hello there, sweeties! I'm back!

I know that I'm a very slow writer but I get my job done and here it is the new one-shot based on requests that I received on Valentine's Day. Once more, I want to thank everybody for reading, liking and writting reviews to the works present here. Thanks a lot. Your support means a lot to me.

This one-shot, in particular, didn't have miss Zeplerfer(as usual) but miss Invisibleju as my beta. A huge thanks to miss Invisibleju for being so kind and helpful! She's such a dear! However, it's important to mention that miss Invisibleju isn't a english native speaker(she's a brazilian like me) though she does study the language so you may feel some changes on my style because I usually have long talks about how to adjust some expressions to english without making it awkward with miss Zeplerfer, since she knows how to make english expressions sound more natural to someone that was born in a country that speaks that language. I couldn't do that with miss Invisibleju but you have no idea of how much she helped me with those damn "a" and "an" and awful distraction mistakes. Anyway, I'm really sorry about any grammar mistakes that may escaped our attention. I'm still gaining confidence about my translation abilities.

I would be very happy if you guys leave some kind of support but even if you don't, thank you for reading my story and I hope you will have a great time. Cya ~

* * *

**Request by anon: Gilbert and Roderich as clients that fake being a couple to get free stuff at restaurants**(a/n: this is actually a prompt that I saw on tumblr and though I said would write a PruAus with this, I probably wouldn't do it because I have many things that I want to write so thanks to anon for giving me another reason to write a story with this plot. I actually had a lot of fun making this.=D)

02\. The Advantages of Being Engaged.

**The** beginning of the romantic relationship between Gilbert Beilschmidt and Roderich Eldestein was more of a pragmatic measure and a conscious decision between two parties in agreement than a consequence of a romantic development. When they made the decision of going out together, they weren't guided by a passionate impulse neither consumed by strong feelings. It was not even a matter of chemistry or the result of a game of innocent flirtations.

They simply reached their thirties, looked at each other's face in the middle of yet another wedding party of a friend they had in common, and concluded, "Why not?"

Possibly some factors have contributed to this simultaneous and instant decision such as the knowledge of both parties that the two were attracted to men, the inevitable sense of loneliness that we can get when we see other people exchanging eternal vows of love in a monumental party, the fact that Gilbert was revoltingly handsome in a suit and that Roderich looked adorable when he tried to disguise how much he was envying the couples in the lounge, attributing his bad mood to small errors in the party organization which were not reported or felt by anybody else.

When the two crossed their eyes, sitting at the same table, the thought, "This person is in the same situation as me " grow on them and it gradually evolved into a " Well, he's not an out of question option.". Shortly after, the two of them noted that those same ideas were appearing on the face of the other, as if they were in front of a mirror.

The conditions were favorable. It was all in the air. They just needed to say the magic words.

"Gilbert Beilschmidt, if you are as tired as me of the inconvenience of the lack of romantic relationships, I suppose that we could solve this dilemma by becoming a couple."

"Okay, that's fine by me. You're being serious about this, right?"

"I'm always serious."

"Good point. Yeah, I think I can see myself going out with you. We've known each other for a long time, we have some tastes in common, we laugh of each other frequently ..."

"Yes, these elements are enough to guarantee a relatively pleasant dynamic on a provisional romance until we meet a more appropriate partner."

"So what you're saying is basically, ' **Let's get together until one of us finds someone better.** '"

"Precisely. Is there a problem with that?"

"Nah. We have a deal."

None of them fit the ideal partner profile that they had in mind.

Gilbert Beilschmidt always thought that when he got a boyfriend, the guy would be an affectionate, dedicated and sweet type and he ended up with Mr. Lazy Poker Face "let-me-entertain-you-with oral-sex-to-distract-you-everytime-that-you-start-to-complain-about-the-mess-I-always-leave-when-I-sleep-at-your-place-because-I'm-that-awful-and-also-do-not-look-at-my-piano-on-the-wrong-way-or-you-will-die-eating-a poisoned-dessert" Eldestein.

Roderich, meanwhile, always thought that his future boyfriend would be a perfect gentleman with extremely elegant ways, endowed with an attractive maturity, and not an individual who enjoyed playing pranks on him (like drawing a ridiculous mustache on him when he dozed in the living room sofa), who dressed and behaved in a flashy manner that could be ridiculous and embarrassing at many times, and who had on the essence of his character that annoying, massive ego accompanied by a provocative sense of humor.

However, to everyone's surprise, especially themselves, they worked very well together.

Gilbert wouldn't have accepted Rod's offer if he saw no future in it. The young lord with all his annoying quirks, with that solemn appearance and devoid of great emotions, with all his undisguised faults, was still the only guy that Gilbert would think of being in a relationship with. Rod, with all his bad and good sides was... Rod and he was incredible. Occasionally, he could be super-annoying, and that couldn't be denied. However, for most of the time, Gilbert really enjoyed the unique personality of his boyfriend and could not help but feel a great affection for some of his peculiarities. The aristocrat could be pretty bad in showing his emotions, indeed. However, he was charming in his subtle demonstrations of them. He had an unexpected sensitivity that would make anyone breathless when expressed in his art. Rod was one of the few people with whom Gilbert felt quite comfortable to expose even his most ridiculous traits, and the two of them always had a mutual openness that resulted in a feeling of tremendous comfort for both to be side by side. Gilbert felt that together they could do anything, even the most time-consuming and monotonous activities, and still find a way to have fun in each other's company.

In turn, from the moment they started their relationship, Roderich Eldestein became fully aware of his sexual attraction to Gilbert and somewhat amazed at his ability to have ignored it for so long. There was something in the disparity between the kind of rebellious appearance of Beilschmidt and his erudite side that had the instantaneous effect of making Roderich's mouth dry, to dilate his pupils and cause soft goose bumps on his skin. Roderich could roll his eyes and laugh discreetly of the silliness of Gilbert's jokes most of the time, just like an old buddy would do, but it was undeniable that when he heard a witty comment from his boyfriend about surrealist art and its relationship with Freud's idea of the flow of thought, a steamy wish that Gilbert threw him against a wall and pressed every part of their bodies together lit up inside him. At such times, he always thought that thank goodness that they were not just old friends.

Speaking of laughs, this was another important aspect of their relationship.

Roderich Eldestein never was a gentleman who could receive the adjective of a "laughing-stock". Hmpf. Far from it. He rarely felt the need to laugh due to his ability to observe a comical situation in a silent appreciation, merely recognizing the humor elements without feeling them, and he laughed mostly out of politeness, because he could not see other purpose to it. Eventually, he ended up being titled as a "taciturn", something that had no difference or impact on his ways. This is why it was indeed curious how he, the taciturn and grumpy Roderich Eldestein, was unable to stop laughing while with his boyfriend. Gilbert could make some jokes so, so dumb… And Roderich still caught himself laughing at them. His laughter was discreet and fast but it was sincere and inevitable.

Roderich Eldestein had to get used to the idea Gilbert had the special gift of making him laugh often and that somehow he started having a more joyful and colorful routine thanks to him.

Unfortunately, there was the agreement, imposing itself as an invisible wall between the couple. After all, technically, that was a temporary arrangement. If one of them found someone better, their relationship could be finished with the same easiness as it started.

As much as they liked each other very much, as much as their relationship was healthy, it was kept carelessness on that subject, a "don't-think-about-the-future" law and a thoughtful and careful way of expressing what they felt for each other, which was used as a shield for theirs delicate hearts.

They never brought the subject up. The prospect that the other party could decide to finish what they had tangibly just because of some remote possibility that their minds insisted on formulating was frightening. Discuss the "agreement" could be taken as "questioning it." "To question it" would mean the want to step forward and take down the self-imposed limitations of their relationship. The problem was that none of them was so sure of the other's feelings to take this risk with the possibility of ending up with nothing in hand. Besides, the real reason they wanted to take a step forward, the reason why was a bit painful to think of the future or why it was so uncomfortable having to speak or hear "I love you" like it was a joke between friends, frightened the owners of these feelings.

All this development lasted for three years and it was precisely on the three year anniversary of their relationship when an event occurred, which was as the beating of wings of a butterfly that would culminate in a tornado to destroy that unfortunate stagnation.

* * *

Who planned the celebration of their special occasions was Gilbert.

First, because he was excellent at remembering dates and organizing a schedule accordingly while Roderich once was extremely shocked and almost triggered the security alarm when he came across a surprise party in his mansion because he simply forgot that it was his birthday. Yep, just like the protagonist of a bad joke.

Second, because Rod was unable to decide about what they should do to celebrate. He was like one of those indecisive children forced to choose a single sweet in the supermarket when they would like to have all, always ending up frustrated and regretful about their final choice, no matter what it was.

Roderich Eldestein elaborated several different schedules and every single time he decided to cancel them in the last minute, giving up when they had barely started to have fun with it, after thinking better in the "cons" and concluding that there were better options than the one he had previously chosen.

No, no. That would be very tiring. How about...? Nope. On second thought, they were not so interested about that. Ah, could be that thing! If that thing only didn't take that much time! Frankly. Maybe they should try something else or go back to the beginning.

... After passing their six-month anniversary running from one side to other without fully enjoying any of the dozens of activities they did that day, thanks to the young lord's volatile enthusiasm followed by his unbearable bitterness, Gilbert didn't want to repeat that and took charge of their schedule for the upcoming celebrations, setting a standard that prevented Rod to come with his sudden plans and to get conformed at once with what became the "usual".

They established that they would always have a special dinner at an elegant restaurant in town, chosen by Gilbert. A dinner didn't cost much time or energy, involved food (which was a gain on its own) and the atmosphere was rather appropriate for the occasion. So with these criteria satisfied, that became the norm.

Of course, the resignation of the aristocrat didn't mean that he was in jubilation with that agreement. Resigned is not a synonym of a legitimate acceptance oh so full of optimism, but of the attitude of someone tired who's like "Whatever.".

The complaint of the young lord about these special dinners was this:

"Oh! These prices are ridiculous. It's pasta. The sum of the price of the ingredients would not give half of that amount! You can easily get them at any grocery store."; "This dessert would have been sweeter if the price of it was not so bitter."; "Why did you choose this restaurant? You should search better on the establishments of your choice, Gilbert. I'm sure there must be places with more reasonable prices. "

Urgh.

Gilbert really adored that guy, but damn, how he could be annoying at times. It was not like Gilbert himself was super-excited about having to pay a fortune for a tasteless salad and stay hungry! If it depended only on his will, the two could go to a pizzeria or another less pompous place! The problem is that Rod, despite of only showing his surly and grumpy side about that, deep, deep down, truly enjoyed the formality of these events and Gilbert's care to make it special. So much that on the only time Gilbert tentatively carried him for a cool and not too expensive bar in a Valentine's Day, the young lord was so, so hurt and certain that it was a sign that Gilbert was losing his interest for him that they had almost broken up that night.

Pompous restaurants were the right way. They came with constant complaints of Rod, of course. It was to be expected! If only the prices were not so high… But what they could do about it? Roderich Eldestein would probably always find the price bad in a fancy establishment, anyway, since he was terribly stingy in relation to his money.

We're talking about a guy who had to go several times to his boyfriend's apartment because "I postponed too much the payment of electricity/water bill and it got cut. Again. I'll need to stay here until it returns." Gilbert had a bachelor apartment and he never delayed the payment of a single bill. Roderich was the owner of a great mansion and yet he postponed payments because, who knows, maybe he had a little hope guarded in his heart that the energy and water companies, in their distraction, wouldn't notice that a single, specific home had not paid their bills, so he waited until the last second to convince himself otherwise.

In a comparison with "The Sims" it was like the family "Landgraab" preferred to go to the home of the "Broke" family to take care of their vital needs.

Nobody could ask for a guy like him to be 102% happy to spend money on a four-star restaurant, no matter how romantic or important was his reason to do so.

At least, that was the only complaint of the aristocrat. Except for the occasional bitter comments in the middle of the meal and the grimace of disgust that he made when seeing the bill, they had a very good time on the dinners and enjoyed immensely their time together.

They talked excitedly about various subjects, gave gifts to each other, exchanged a few goodbye kisses at Gilbert's building front door, and the night was closed with an eight of ten grade.

And so went their lives until that day.

* * *

Okay, so it was their three year anniversary and they were in a French restaurant, eating their dinner and drinking wine, engaged in a dialogue about the reform going on in Rod's mansion and the disruptions that it was bringing. The main one among these was due to the accumulation of a lot of junk over the years by the young lord, of which he didn't want to get rid and that were currently occupying an indispensable space for the architect in charge of the project. A man Roderich considered an insensitive person who couldn't understand the value of those material memories and the usefulness that they might could have one day. Gilbert was currently discussing with his boyfriend was where exactly those cra… I mean, material memories should go.

Then suddenly they heard a noise coming from a table behind them and when they turned …

"... And you're the most beautiful, lovely and charming girl of the entire world. Will you marry me, Lovina Vargas?" said a man kneeling on the ground, showing a small black box for a woman who immediately rose from her chair in a jump, covering her face with her hands and so starring in one of the most clichéd scenes of the universe.

"Of course I will, you idiot!" she cried out in tears, throwing herself on the arms of her fiancé.

Meanwhile, while all the people on the restaurant stood up from their tables to clap the future bride and groom, Roderich and Gilbert's reaction on this touching scene was the same:

"So corny." the aristocrat said quietly, shaking his face sideways.

"Public proposals are a total embarrassment." Gilbert nodded his head in agreement, "What would he do if she didn't accept it?"

"I can't understand what leads someone to expose themselves in such a way."

"Me neither. High-five."

"I don't even know why I'm agreeing to participate in this silly gesture of yours." Roderich said, rolling his eyes but still giving him that.

A pointed half-smile grew by one of Gilbert Beilschmidt's face edges.

"Because I'm an irresistible boyfriend and it's almost impossible to deny my requests?"

Pling! It worked! Roderich's shoulders rose suddenly as they always did when he was laughing inside. He had to abruptly stop the sip of wine that he was taking and his eyes wide as if he was catch by surprise. Oh, man, Rod was totally containing his laughter.

"For heaven's sake, Gilbert! Don't make me laugh so suddenly!" he complained when he finally could swallow the drink and stop coughing, not showing, however, any real trace of hostility or disapproval in his words. "I almost choked on my wine!" He spoke in a voice broken by brief silent pauses that were accompanied by involuntary movements on the upper part of in his body.

Gosh. It was amazing how three years had not changed how restrained and discreet Rod's laugh was and how it was effective at warming Gilbert's chest and filling him with pride for having been the one to cause it.

At the moment Rod was recovering from his sudden laughter access and Gilbert was delighted with this view, gradually erasing everything that was around the young lord to focus on the details of this lovely scene. The fact that a couple had made a public proposal on that restaurant was falling rapidly in the priority list of their thoughts. Given that their attention focus had already shifted 180 degrees by this point, their observations about that event would probably have stopped there, if they had not seen the outcome of that story. However…

"LET'S GO TO OUR APARTMENT, LOVINA! I'm so excited! We have a lot to plan!"

Unfortunately, the idiot groom practically screamed that and so the newly formed atmosphere of intimacy between Roderich and Gilbert was broken down so hard that Gilbert could almost see the metaphorical cracks appear in front of him. Fuck, man, did that asshole had to be so noisy? Why he couldn't fucking see that there were other couples having a moment there?

"Waiter, can you bring the bill already?!" asked the bride, also at an overly high volume. No one could deny that the two of them were the two halves of an (very indiscreet) orange.

The aristocrat accompanied Gilbert in his action of throwing a critical look to that big scene that the cheesy couple was making. The young lord's smile had been completely dismantled and replaced with a thin layer of disdain, for some reason, eerily similar to what he used to display in the old days of watching the wedding of their friends, sitting at the singles' table.

Anyway... Gilbert could fully understand his bitterness, regardless of how were its manifestations, and he could also taste some of it in the inside of his own mouth.

Urgh. Thank God that the idiot couple had asked for the bill. They should hand over their money and go away already.

HA, HA! They were looking so ridiculous! Gilbert wouldn't EVER want or need to be a part of a shameful scene like that to be happy with his relationship. Ha, ha, ha! Of course not!

… Then, why was he upset at all? Why was he feeling that strange anger that was not quite as fury but rather as a sour feeling running through his veins, mixed with something cooler than ice?

It wasn't like he was envious of them. Ha, ha! Of course not!

He was... Huh... Justifiably disgusted with all that noise disturbing his date! Yeah, that's right! A guy needs a little personal space. Totally understandable.

That intense and almost desperate desire that the stupid couple would just leave that damn place with all their declarations of love, sincere and direct manifestations of affection and building a solid future together, could be attributed merely to how hard it was to an empathic person as Gilbert to keep seeing the two of them exposing themselves to ridicule in this way and not being allowed to do anything to help them.

Ah! Gilbert Beilschmidt was really too kind and considerate.

…

Urgh. Right! All right, all right! To be honest, it was not just a matter of empathy. These emotions were not 10202034% caused just because he felt bad about that cheesy couple.

To be honest, he could acknowledge that he had a slightly dark side inside him, despite all the nobility of heart he possessed. Not having flaws would be a terrible lack to his personality formation, so it was only natural that he had some. While he did possess a noble heart and empathy, he also had a selfish side and could even feel an evil pleasure in some circumstances.

On that moment, for example, somewhere in the agitated crowd of his aggressive and contained feelings, the malign portion of his personality was giving a casual walk around the block. It was manifesting when Gilbert got amused by the thought that the lovebirds in front of him could have all their pompous declarations and monumental gestures of true love, but still had to pay the bill like everybody else! For who knows what reasons, that was so satisfying to see!

"Oh, please, don't worry about that. You both just got engaged. It is courtesy of the house to not let you pay the bill. Accept this as an engagement present."

These were the manager's words.

No kidding.

What the fuck.

"Really?! But we asked for so many things...!" The bride exclaimed and this time she was right to be screaming. After all, Gilbert and Roderich were also screaming. Internally.

The only person amazingly quiet about that was the restaurant manager.

"It's okay. As I said, you got engaged," he replied, smiling softly, "This is not the kind of event that happens every day in this restaurant. We can have this expense on a special occasion. Please, consider this dinner as a special gift."

What?

What? What? What?

He was serious? That was real? That couple would be allowed to not pay a micro-fortune because of a dumb reason like that?

How stupid and troublesome! They didn't thought of the possibility that a person decided to take advantage of this system and, I don't know, go on many different restaurants asking their partner to marry him in the middle of their date repeatedly to win free food?

…

Hold on a sec. On a second thought, that wasn't a bad idea.

I mean, it was a bad idea for the restaurant owners; however, it was not a bad idea to other parts. That sounded like one hell of an opportunity. A totally crazy opportunity. It was precisely because the idea was that crazy that it had huge chances of working, since clearly the people had not even imagined that someone would actually do it.

Man, the plan that was going on in Gilbert's mind was completely absurd. If his partner were any other guy, he would never feel at ease to reveal it because a hypothetical boyfriend, besides don't agreeing to that, would be very mad at such suggestion. Lucky for him that was Rod. They both had a clever mind that they liked to use to their advantage, an intense fury about the price of the plates of good restaurants, a wit trait on the best Slytherin style and a nerve with very few limitations.

Since his boyfriend was Rod, there was some chance that he would take the plan into account.

"Roderich, I know if it may sound like a crazy plan, but what do you think of ...?"

"Yes." was Roderich's short and resolute answer. He held Gilbert's hands and looked into his eyes intently and very seriously. There was an unusual spark glowing in his usually calm iris, like waves churning in the vast ocean. It was that spark who led Gilbert to realize...

Rod **knew** what he would say.

He was agreeing.

There was no doubt of that. For the second time in their lives, they had exactly the same ideas at the same time and only needed an exchange of glances to come into a consensus.

Who would have thought of it, huh? The saying was right. Great minds really think alike.

* * *

"Yes, I will."

"Oh, Roderich! I will make you the happiest man alive!"

"Gilbert, dear, would you have money to request a champagne for us to celebrate?"

"Please! Don't worry about that! You just got engaged, after all! This dinner is on the house!"

"I can't believe what I'm hearing! What a kind and completely unexpected gesture! Thank you very much!"

"Yeah, thanks, man! This is a great engagement gift!"

When the manager walked away from the table and people withdrew their attention and visual field from them, Roderich and Gilbert exchanged accomplices smiles endowed with a malice that could be interpreted as luxurious on the view of an outside observer.

Its meaning was quite different in reality.

Slowly and discreetly, Roderich leaned forward, bringing their foreheads together and whispered with his lips traversing Gilbert's, keeping his voice at a volume audible only to him.

"I'm still amazed that the plan has actually worked," he said, letting his voice intentionally hoarse because he knew very well what kind of effect it had on Gilbert. Just because they were supposedly pretending to be flirting to discreetly talk, that didn't mean that he couldn't go a little further in his "performance".

"Of course it worked." Gilbert replied, swallowing hard and giving a smile that was clearly forced. Roderich's eyes shifted to his boyfriend's Adam's apple, which became very interesting when going up and down." I'm a genius, you know."

That was a response so typical from his partner that Roderich Eldestein couldn't get bothered with it. He corrected very casually just for the pleasure and for being able to do so.

"You forget we had the same idea at the same time when we saw that pathetic scene two weeks ago." he remembered, closing his eyes briefly. Then, he took some distance from his boyfriend to drink a bit of wine.

Roderich Eldestein never needed care to counter or retort his boyfriend. They understood each other in their unique languages so their mutual provocations were never taken as a real offense. On the contrary. Part of their fun was in those clashes of ironies, eloquence and knowledge. They could occasionally have a real fight and they knew very well when the situation between them was serious, but the normal in their relationship was that frank and spontaneous communication with some light teasing and sensual implications.

Indeed, as expected, Gilbert took Roderich's commentary on the best way possible.

"Yes, but I was the one who formulated a strategy for its magnanimous execution. It was the great me who had the idea to buy a cheap ring at e-bay and who wrote the speech and who asked you to marry me on both occasions..." Gilbert listed with his fingers, then raised both hands in the air, giving an arrogant and self-satisfied smile. "Come on! Admit that I'm a glorious person and recognize my immeasurable merits, young lord."

"Okay, I will be gracious and admit that your contributions to this plan were quite important." he sighed in response, containing a smile.

"Oh, Rod." Gilbert gave a very affectionate laugh, tilting his head to the side and resting his chin on one hand."You really know the right words to warm a man's heart," he said in a joking tone.

"Shut up, you big idiot." Roderich Eldestein spoke these words without any hostility and the opening of his mouth while he said it allowed some laughs to escape.

"Speaking of the right words..." suddenly Beilschmidt's voice acquired a seriousness and sobriety that abruptly changed the course of that casual discussion. He lowered his eyes, staring at the silk tablecloth as if observing a fish moving in a river. Oh. He was being serious now. Roderich was confused by the sudden change."Why am I always the one who asks you to marry me?" He muttered resentfully, "Why can't you ask me in marriage for a change?"

Oh.

That.

Well...

...

Roderich's breath was accelerated by its hunger for oxygen. His heart was compressed and though Gilbert was not looking directly at him, it was impossible to resist the urge to divert his eyes down and to the other side.

"You know very well why." Although his face was perfectly calm and composed, the sounds came out of his throat lower than he intended. "I wouldn't be convincing enough." He answered and it was true. "Unfortunately, I'm incapable to hurt my pride by exposing myself in such an embarrassing way". Another truth. "A wedding proposal coming from me would be more akin to a graduation speech than to an expression of true love." While the truth was not yet completely exposed, this was the conclusion of his speech. He didn't see benefits in extending his explanations on more honest and embarrassing directions.

Luckily for him, his boyfriend was an idiot who was completely deceived by those lines and more struck by the humorous appeal of Roderich's statement than with the implications it hid.

"Pfff!" Gilbert's laugh came so hard and so abruptly that he opened his eyes widely, spitting a huge sip of champagne which spread like a spray on the table. So rude. A few drops were splashed in Roderich face and he had to wipe them with a handkerchief, dissatisfied with that mess, but a little pleased with the strong involuntary response from his boyfriend to his little joke."Damn, Rod! This is your fault!" Gilbert accused still laughing, pointing at him with one hand and covering his mouth with the other.

"I cannot see how your innate rudeness could be attributed to me." He spoke in a candid cynicism, as if he didn't knew what Gilbert was talking about, but leaving a subtle smile slip through his lips. "Don't be so inelegant."

"I know you love me. You come up with all this talk of bad acting, but who knows!" Gilbert scoffed "Maybe you just want me to be publicly declaring my love for you over and over again! Ha, ha!"

Oh.

"…"

Unintentionally or not, that comment hit a very sensitive point and Roderich lost his smile and his ability to give a response at the same time.

"Love" was a sort of forbidden word in their complicated relationship and any thoughtless mention of that feeling, no matter the context, could cause discomfort to both sides.

"Er... Hm." Gilbert awkwardly tried to fix the situation, thinking about something to say while rubbing the back of his neck, looking down."I was just messing with you, young lord."

"I know," was all Roderich could say.

A gray and cold cloud hovered and fell over them, causing an anxious silence so filled with tension that seemed it could crack into thousands of sharp pieces if not handled delicately.

None of them wanted to be the first to break the silence because they both feared what the other expect them to say and had no idea of what themselves would like to say.

They passed about two minutes in this unbearable tension, until Gilbert decided to take the initiative to break it. He slammed a fist on the table, muttered some swear-words and raised his eyes to meet Roderich's. Then, he held lightly on the chin of his boyfriend, using his fingertips to move his head slightly to the side.

"Can I kiss you?" He asked when their eyes met, frowning in concentration. For someone with such a serious and determined face, he was surprisingly red.

"This was a very unexpected request," was all Roderich could say at first, but it was enough to make Gilbert laugh and roll his eyes playfully.

"Is unexpected of me to want to kiss my own 'groom'?" He asked in a much more relaxed way.

Roderich barely changed his expression.

"You could be already kissing me instead of being distracted by these jokes." he stated dead serious.

"You have an excellent point."

Not wasting a second, Roderich's boyfriend put a hand behind his neck and took advantage of the proximity of their faces to bring him even closer and press their lips together.

Gilbert's lips brought to Roderich Eldestein a familiar feeling. They were rough, thin, hot and humid and they requested an opening oh so gently that it was a bit surprising to see how enthusiastic Gilbert usually became as soon as his tongue crossed Roderich's parted lips. On those moments, he practically devoured the inside of his mouth even though he was so careful before and Roderich was very weak against it. Oh dear. Gilbert. Gilbert. Gilbert.

That ridiculously attractive, smart and funny dummy...

For reasons that Roderich had not approved before even knowing what it was, Gilbert interrupted their make-out session to comment, laughing a bit.

"Huh..." he lowered his eyes and smiled with affection, softness and some fun. "You're in a good mood today, young lord."

He was.

"I am."

Question answered. Now, they could return to what they were doing.

If Gilbert, that foolish fool, had not stopped again to talk some nonsense for whatever reason.

"You are also more..." he licked his lower lip. Seeing this, Roderich felt vaguely tempted to imitate the movement. Though not on his own lip, of course. "Er..." Gilbert had difficulty finding the right terms. "'straightforward than normal', so to say."

Roderich Eldestein rolled his eyes, not believing that they had been stopped for that.

"We are successfully bypassing a flawed and absurd system and therefore avoiding paying a fortune for a nice meal." He expressed his feelings on this matter in a concise and coldly analytical manner,"Of course this raises a primitive satisfaction in me."

For some reason, his silly boyfriend kept amused with that situation that was causing Roderich a very different eagerness than the strong desire to laugh that was coming from him.

"That's your elaborate and eloquent way of saying that doing forbidden things turns you on?" Gilbert asked, smiling while wiping away tears generated by his laughter.

Oh! That was an awful question! How dared he?!

"Don't be so rude." Roderich replied, crossing his arms over his chest tightly.

Soon after the conclusion of Roderich's quite imperative sentence, Gilbert started to cautiously watch his face, blinking his wide eyes in a difficult expression to read. It was like he... was waiting for something? This was the best guess Roderich could make.

After a while, since Mr. Eldestein didn't provide anything that might match his expectations or anything really but a placid silence, Gilbert ended up changing his mood for something more clear and easy to read.

"Holy shit, you didn't deny what I said." Roderich's boyfriend finally pointed out, letting out a huge wave of air through his mouth with his eyebrows jumping in disbelief, and pointing his finger at Roderich Eldestein's chest. "Doing forbidden things does turn you on!" he realized stunned and Roderich had to scold him giving a light slap on the hand that was touching his chest because Gilbert, that embarrassing creature, had practically shouted it in front of several strangers and he had no right to say such a thing, even if it were true. Upon receiving the slap of the aristocrat, Gilbert opened his mouth in a broad, quite impressed and a little more entertained than it should be smile. "Who would ever know?! You of all people having a dirty-dirty kink like this!"

"Should I leave you laughing at the table and solve this problem by myself?" done with that waste of time, Roderich allowed his impatience to appear in a cold way, aiming to put an end to those stupid interruptions.

"Hey, hey. No need to be angry, young lord." He laughed in a mixture of tenderness and teasing, putting a hand on one of the sides of Eldestein's face. "We barely got engaged!" he sneered, continuing to show that sense of humor inappropriate for the moment.

Gilbert Beilschmidt was not too intimidated by his words, apparently.

"Gilbert, I swear to God that if you make one more stupid joke...!" He was about to yell at his boyfriend, irascible to the point of ignoring all social conventions which prevented him from doing a scene like that in a restaurant, when he heard Gilbert's voice interrupting him in a tone that was certainly not the tone of a stupid joke.

"Let's go to my apartment." Gilbert Beilschmidt spoke in a low, serious and ridiculously desirable voice, putting Roderich in an instantaneous silence of waiting and anticipation for his next lines. Now they were FINALLY heading to the right direction. That was what he thought. However, he soon discovered that it might possibly been a mistake to give credits the maturity of his boyfriend so soon, considering that Gilbert next words didn't had the seriousness that he presented in his previous sentence. "Unless you want to solve our problems in the restroom, my dear and impatient exhibitionist groom?"

God. That stupid, stupid fool! It was unbelievable that such stupidity could accumulate in a single individual. If the word "stupid" could take a human form, it would be an statue identical to Gilbert Beilschmidt in the smallest details. Christ, what a stupid person!

"I could have taken your question as an offense if your face weren't the same colour of my red wine." Roderich raised his glass whose content was half full. His features were insipid as ever, though his patience was already at its limits. Gilbert's jaw fell on the unexpected provocation and Roderich took advantage of his silence and spoke in a low volume with a contained ardor, decided to change definitely the comic trajectory and that friendly discussion, "If you feel so compelled to know what stimulates me, I can describe my preferences in tiny and quite visual details, my dear."

From there, Roderich Eldestein presented to Gilbert a series of more graphic descriptions of his expectations than several porn he had watched, and the pretty clear intentions to perform them when they reached his apartment, which make them both practically fly out of that restaurant.

That plan definitively had better consequences than Gilbert had anticipated.

* * *

They couldn't do that every week, couldn't repeat the restaurants and Gilbert had to write new proposal speechs all the time just in case a client who attended a restaurant where they had already gone also appeared in the new place, so they wouldn't think "Hey! This speech seems strangely familiar!" and connect the dots. Taking the right cares, the effectiveness of that method to get free food was almost guaranteed.

It was a laborious job, but totally worth it. At first, the greatest benefit was the financial one. However, over time, the effects extended to other fields of their relationship.

Since they were spending less money, there were more opportunities for them to leave in romantic and special dinners. For not wasting his money, Roderich's mood improved considerably. Now, they could take the time Roderich used to waste doing the mundane complaints about how much they were spending to talk about subjects that were genuinely interesting. Also, let's not forget that a content Roderich was a more playful Roderich, a more spontaneous Roderich and, last but not least, an absurdly sexy Roderich.

They both spent their dinner together laughing and toasting their success as two teenagers (or as two villains of DC comics). The young lord was the king of the shamelessness and Gilbert was the supreme emperor of strategies. Together they were an unbeatable team.

Even when dinner was ended and they returned to Gilbert's home, the charm between them was not broken. The two continued to act like teenagers though in a very, very different way. How to put this...? Huh... Using Rod's euphemism, the "primitive satisfaction" that they got after succeeding in their schemes made them horny like a couple of teenagers in the throes of hormonal boiling.

Sex with Rod was always good. The young lord had a number of different partners before Gilbert and the guy had his tricks. Sexually, they always had good times together. On the dynamics of their relationship, this was an aspect with which they didn't have to worry about. Still, there was a difference between the carefree, fun and casual sex they used to have and the enthusiastic and wild celebration sex they were having now.

Rod got turned on by doing kind of forbidden things and that made Gilbert all hot and bothered.

The aristocrat was an expert in making Gilbert arrive at the height of desperation for his skin, lips and contours, taking it to his limits too, which resulted in intense, animalistic and absolutely fantastic sex. When the two finished, Roderich's eyes, sated and happy, seemed like constellations, having the vacuum darkness filled with stars. Gilbert's heart practically sucked that vision because, damn, they were beautiful.

Little by little, the accumulation of these shared experiences of joy, contact and relaxation were mingling with the discomfort and secret expectations that Gilbert has held for some time as to the nature of their relationship and that was weighing on his head, reaching a point where he could no longer ignore it.

He needed to be honest. His relationship with Rod was not a casual thing he could break any day. What he felt for the young lord was not a mere attraction. It was ten thousand times worse. He didn't "like" that aristocrat. He was not "fooling around" with him. Rod was his goal for life, a figure present in his plans for the future.

Before he couldn't imagine being with someone **besides** Rod. Now he didn't want to imagine himself **without** Rod.

Despite all the warnings provided by his mind about the emotional dangers of this admission, Gilbert Beilschmidt could no longer deny which was extremely obvious to every fiber of his being. He had to confess to himself that he was deeply and completely in love with the young lord.

Well, fuck.

It was not the "friendship". It was not the "sex". It was the junction of the two and a mysterious additional element, strange, simple and complex that Gilbert would rather not name because that would be totally cheesy and lame.

From a certain point, on each occasion in which he proposed Rod, he unconsciously began to pay close attention to Roderich's reaction, checking if there was something in particular that caused a different effect on his stoic aristocrat. Like it or not, Gilbert Beilschmidt was already involuntarily looking for signs of being reciprocated.

He was a lost case.

Before, when Gilbert thought that Rod would never ever correspond him, the denial was much easier. But now? A content Roderich left exposed some feelings that were usually hidden by layers of grumpiness and complaints of everyday life, being physically painful to Gilbert to notice these feelings without being sure of their legitimacy or its real meaning.

The higher frequency of their opportunities to going out on dates made Gilbert realize that no matter how many times they did a particular activity, they didn't get tired of each other and their romantic moments never lost its discreet magic. His continuous previous fears about his position on the line between friends with benefits and boyfriends were firmly dismissed by those meetings that indicated that they were definitively a couple. Certain gestures, glances and conversations taking place in the middle of these dates definitely didn't have the nature of a casual relationship between friends. The romantic encounters of them were always... well, how to say...? "Romantic"! Although it was not even their anniversary or something.

As for the sexual lives... No comment. As previously mentioned, it had improved dramatically because Rod totally got off at the thought of doing kind of forbidden things, and being aware of that, Gilbert wanted to find out what were the other elements that aroused that sexy side in his pompous boyfriend. After all, sex with Rod when he was super-duper-horny was much more pleasurable. Seeing each one of the actions and reactions of the young lord, filled with feelings and intense sensations, it was quite an experience. The way he looked as if he could devour him when he was on top of him, the way he blushed when Gilbert made any comment or gesture more affectionate than sexual, the way he hugged Gilbert strong when he was underneath, the way as they also felt free to communicate about any problem, discomfort or preference in the middle of the action... Sex had never been such an emotional and full of trust experience, as the one he had with Rod. Gilbert didn't even know that a sexual experience could generate a connection like that.

He was done with that "agreement". He and Rod were together for almost four years and were friends for seven years. The alleged "casual" dating of them resisted to conflicts and fights, visible differences in their personalities, arduous moments and severe complications that could shake the longest of the relationships, even though technically only a "temporary" one. That's because even in the midst of conflict, they kept their dignity, their respect for each other.

If they could establish something more serious, they probably would have a bright future ahead.

It was time to show how serious he was about them.

* * *

They went to an Italian restaurant that was actually in Italy. Advantages of living in Europe. The trip had been relatively long and Rod had complained about that at first but Gilbert was a man with a mission and part of it involved a trip to a romantic and appropriate place for the occasion that had never been used to gain discounts or discussed as possible next location for that.

The other important and difficult part of the plan was to pretend that everything was normal. Seriously, man. It has never been so difficult to swallow a pasta or to endure Roderich's series of commentaries about how good it was running away from ridiculous prices establishments and about how much they would save on this or that, when that wasn't even Gilbert Beilschmidt's real motivation for bringing them there.

Gilbert waited and refrained until the time he thought was the right one. That was on the end of the main course and the beginning of sunset.

"Rod, can you promise me that you will take seriously what I'm about to say?" He asked when they were both seated at the table after that great meal, putting his hand in the pocket of his pants. He felt the object that was in it in his palm, together with a humid sensation of sweat. He was glad to have thought of picking a table that stood outside the restaurant because the constant salt air was the only element that was helping to get ridden of that cold sweat.

"No." The young lord replied in two seconds, "Try anyway."

Wow, aristocrat. Thank you for making this way easier for me.

"No deal." Gilbert spoke with irritability, suddenly lowering his head, as if with a heavy neck. The plan was barely starting to get executed and Rod was already creating problems. He could retaliate Roderich talking about the importance of the trust between people, but that would take too long and he was a nervous wreck already."Trust me." he tried to appeal, raising only his eyes to convey its full seriousness about that subject, "I know what I'm saying. You promise, swear that will take me seriously?"

"You're making an unnecessary drama." Roderich snorted and crossed his arms petulantly, tilting his head up and slightly to the side, showing a clear disdain about the gravity that Gilbert was giving to that moment. Rod could be quite theatrical in his disapproval. "Yes, I'll take your words seriously, Gilbert." He spoke in the tired and slow tone of a condescending person.

It was not the best answer, but it was probably the best he would get and Gilbert contented himself with it.

Still, the practice was infinitely worse than the theory. As much as Gilbert had practiced and planned for it, he still couldn't escape the nervousness that took full force when he ran into Roderich Eldestein's eyes, his boyfriend's eyes. He drummed his fingers on the table surface and took a deep breath, filling his lungs to the maximum. Then he closed his eyes for a few seconds, like a diver about to jump on an immense trampoline, and only reopened them after gaining some confidence and resolution.

"Roderich Eldestein, I know we didn't have a good start on this romance thing..." he began to talk in a strangely careful way, as if he was always on the verge of stuttering in his words. His eyes roamed the sidewalk tiles of the place where their table was, finding very interesting details on each of them. He got lost in a brief part of his speech, but he managed to regain control over it, "I know that a stranger would look at us and wonder 'What the hell those two are doing together? Do they have anything in common at all?' Ha!" His laughter was so forced it hurt, "I know that even our close friends must wonder about it from time to time. Ha, ha! Even so ... Well, I ... You know, I ... Huh…"

"Why are you stuttering so much?"

Damn it.

"Hey, this is not easy for me, you know!" He could not contain his anger or the blush that crept up his neck for more than one reason. "I am seriously embarrassed here! Put yourself in my place!"

"Embarrassed?" Rod looked confused.

"Urgh! You're so slow!" Gilbert had to grunt, burying his face between his hands and throwing his head up high in his frustration. "Of course I'm embarrassed! I'm trying to say something important to you!"

"Very well. Go ahead then. I'm waiting."

Oh. The frustrating consequences of dating for years an aristocrat with difficulty of detecting subtleties if they were not related to musical arrangements. Gilbert should have expected them.

"You still have no clue of what I'm talking about, right?" He snorted, covering his forehead with his hand. Apparently, Rod wouldn't be able to understand what was going on, unless Gilbert was 14765% straightforward and 99% didactic. "Okay, let's put things in explicit terms, Mr. Subtlety-And-Sensitivity." He finally decided resolute, raising his face. "Rod, I know we agreed that our relationship would be more casual and we never discussed the consequences of this arrangement… But we need to recognize that circumstances have changed. I don't know about you but there's a long time that they changed for me. I'm serious about it. Like, very serious." He stressed, emphasizing his "serious face", "I think we should end this casual relationship already."

There was a short silent pause in which Gilbert waited anxiously for his boyfriend's reaction. He seemed quite thoughtful and Gilbert could not tell if this was a good or bad sign.

"I see. You decided to break up with me on our four years anniversary." Roderich finally came to this conclusion.

What?! Seriously, what?! What the actual fuck was going on?!

How the hell he reached a misunderstanding that big?!

"NO!" Gilbert exclaimed dumbfounded. He was shocked and frankly somewhat offended because goddammit, aristocrat! That was how poorly Rod perceived him?! "Damn, you're slow to catch these things, Rod! Do you really think I'm the kind of guy who rejects others like that?!"

"It was you who said you would like to end our relationship!" was what Roderich claimed in revolt.

"Heck, Rod! Can you give me a break? There is someone trying to confess here!"

He thought he had been direct enough this time. However, for who knows what reasons, rather than having a reasonable reaction as saying an emotional "Oh, Gilbert, my dear beloved! Carry me in your arms!" Rod started to look around as if looking for something.

"I think that what is happening at the other tables is not relevant now." that's what he ended by saying dissatisfied, which implied that he had concluded that Gilbert was saying that someone was trying to confess AT OTHER TABLE.

Urgh.

For real?

That was really happening?

"Hey. You're not doing playing dumb on purpose, are you?", this question was asked in an exhausted tone while Gilbert sank his head into his hands.

"Great. First, you say you want to end our relationship and then you offend me."

"How the fuck did you reach this freaking conclusion?!" Gilbert had to shout, barely believing on what he just heard, "I don't understand how you twisted things to that point! How did you take everything I said that wrong?! Seriously, you must be the only being on Earth that could think that I'm rejecting you while I'm literally confessing my feelings for you right now!"

"Huh?"

Rod made a confused and disoriented expression.

Done. Finally he got it. Good Lord, that took such a long and absurd amount of time.

"Yeah, that's right. I love you. I'm crazy about you. I'm in love with you. Take that!" He stood up, pointing to the aristocrat's chest with a vaguely evil smile of victory that Gilbert himself could not explain, "My feelings! ON YOUR FACE!"

He certainly was not saying that the most romantic way possible, but it was enough for him. Extreme circumstances call for extreme measures.

"Huh…"

"Not only that!" He added, laughing as a villain while trying to ignore how his face was burning unbearably, "I am so brave that I brought a ring and I'm asking you to marry me in the middle of this restaurant! Admire eternally my great courage!"

HA, HA, HA!

"Gilbert, what are you ...?" In the middle of this sentence, the young lord suddenly stopped, as if struck by a realization, and made a short silent pause before blinking his eyes, sighing and showing an expression 180 degrees different from the previous. "Oh, Gilbert. I can't believe how lucky I am. Yes, I will marry you." He smiled sweetly.

Sweet. Smile. Roderich Eldestein. Smile.

Hold on a sec. This was not the right reaction AT ALL. Something was terribly out of place there.

Well, of couse, it would be very unreasonable to expect that Rod would say a deeply touched "Yes" and throw himself into his arms. The reaction that Gilbert was really expecting was a "What? " or " Is this a joke? " or a dry, direct and with no openings to further discussions "No".

Giving a positive response and especially such a gentle and tender positive response wasn't like Rod at all.

Unless…

"Young lord, you do understand that I mean it, right?" Gilbert's serious expression quickly returned when he realized that Rod possibly still didn't understood what he was saying. He held Roderich's hands.

"Of course I do." Roderich continued to say with that gracious smile which's meaning Gilbert understood very well because he had already seen countless times before. "Why don't we ask for champagne to celebrate, darling?"

FUUUUUUUUUUUCK.

"Hey, Rod." He began to talk in a more angry tone, but was interrupted by a very satisfied (for the wrong reasons) Roderich.

"You don't need to say anything else." He said quietly, shaking back Gilbert's hands, "I congratulate you for thinking on so many details. I don't know where you found a wedding ring that looks so much like a real one but it's very beautiful and I must confess I was a little tired of the other. Also, your proposal speech had a pretty convincing writing this ti..."

"Roderich, I really mean it."

Once again, Rod began to look around as if looking for Gilbert's source of stress even though that was **literally** right where he was.

"What?" Roderich questioned since he didn't identify a suspicious subject around to justify the way how his boyfriend was behaving "Why do you keep repeating it?"

That was the last fucking straw.

Gilbert hit his two fists on the table at once, making the dishes jump.

"I'm not doing this to get free food!" He yelled, staring Roderich intensely "I'm asking you to marry me, your dumbass!"

HE COULDN'T BE MORE DIRECT THAN THAT.

WELL, AT LEAST, RODERICH FINALLY HAVE SEEMED TO GET THE FREAKING MESSAGE.

At first, the Rod was silent. Very silent. After a few seconds, his mouth moved as if he were about to say something, but as if he suddenly changed his mind, he ended up just turning his head slightly to the side, not emitting any sound. Then he stared at the table still with his mouth wide open.

"You can't be..." he stammered, opening and closing his mouth repeatedly. Finally, he managed to ask in a small voice "Why?"

"Because I love you? Because I plan to stay with you the rest of my life? Because I'm tired to act as if our relationship is not as serious as it is? Seriously, Rod, it may seem surprising, but sometimes people ask each other in marriage because they want to marry them." Gilbert commented sardonically, spreading his arms in an intentionally exaggerated mocking gesture. "Shocking, I know."

Using a sarcastic, cynical and impatient attitude to cover up deep emotional insecurities was Gilbert Beilschmidt's specialty.

Not showing a trace of his emotions or any indication of what he was thinking in extreme circumstances was Roderich Eldestein's specialty.

"A wedding would be quite sudden." Rod said in a thoughtful tone with a serious expression, "A few seconds ago, I thought our relationship was only temporary and that you were about to end it. This proposal is very abrupt."

This was a good argument but Rod was just a little too rational for the situation. It didn't even seem that Gilbert had just confessed his deep feelings and asked him on marriage. He could at least have stammered a bit!

Anyway... Urgh. That was a rejection, wasn't it? As expected.

"Well ... I wanted to show you how serious I am." Gilbert clicked his tongue while grudgingly explaining that, "If I asked you to go out with me, you would find some way to deny the seriousness of my request with your conspiracy theories... or if I did that on a private space you would run away before I had a chance to explain myself better because you would be thinking that I was playing an elaborate trick on you." Gilbert then rolled his eyes as if to say 'Don't try to deny it. I'm 1000% sure you would do it.', "Yep, I know you, Rod. In summary, I've asked you to marry me because I'm that serious about our relationship and I wanted you to realize it."

Hearing that, the aristocrat let out a little sigh and revealed a subtle layer of a feeling that rarely came over his face.

Pity.

"Gilbert, I cannot accept your proposal no..."

Gilbert Beilschmidt din't want to hear the rest. He knew what the young master was about to say and he really was in no mood to endure pity coming from Rod of all people.

"That's okay. No need to explain." He interrupted, shaking his head from side to side in resignation, "I understand."

"Gilbert."

"Please don't make that whole 'It's not you, it's me' speech." He was keen to point out, using a gesture with his hands to express the lack of need for another word to be said about it, "I think the cliché would make me puke."

"Gilbert."

"It is my fault. Our relationship has always worked well casually and I blew it with this talk of love and all that. I'm the one who should apologize."

"Gilbert!"

"Like I said, you don't need to worry, Rod, I won't be insisting when I received a pretty honest refu..."

The phrase was cut in half when the aristocrat suddenly leaned forward him and pressed his lips together tightly and impatiently. It was a surprising and not entirely unpleasant sensation, but Gilbert was so taken aback by it that he was incapable of having any other reaction besides almost falling back to his chair and holding on the table to regain balance. Completed this emergency measure, he didn't have time to process what would be the next best course of action because the kiss ended as suddenly as it had begun, leaving a slight numb tingling sensation on his lips thanks to the intensity of its pressure. It had been so fast and so strange that if not for that feeling, he would hardly have believed in what just happened.

...

Okay, so now he was the one who was intensely confused by what was going on.

"Huh? What?" he mumbled in shock.

"You're too hasty, Gilbert." the young lord scolded, pulling away from him and wiping his mouth with a handkerchief that he took off the table. He was not being compassionate, understanding or even patient and actually whoever saw him with those harsh manners, would never imagined that HE had just refuse a marriage proposal, "Be aware of this problem on your personality."

What. The. Fuck. Was. Going. On.

"Wha...?" Gilbert blinked stunned.

"As I said, I can't accept your proposal NOW." He completed his previous sentence, emphasizing the last word, "Unlike you, I didn't have time to prepare myself emotionally for a commitment that important. I need to think about it." he put his hands over his hips, "Be patient. Not everyone have this impulsive genius of yours."

"Does that mean you may come to accept my request in the future?" There was an undeniable note of hope in that question.

Rod lowered his head and raised his eyes in a way that clearly expressed that he thought it was the dumbest question developed since primitive man learned about the ability to communicate through speech. In short, for him, that question was extraordinarily stupid.

"Gilbert Beilschmidt, I'm sure I'll accept your request in the future." He answered very seriously, "It is only a matter of 'when' not 'if'."

"Really?!" His smile spread all across his face.

"Stop being so surprised with my answers!" He replied impatiently, crossing his arms over his chest, "If you asked me on marriage, you should at least have minimum expectations regarding the reciprocity of your feelings!"

"Well, I didn't!" Gilbert responded frankly and irritably, widening his eyes and beating his fists on the table in exasperation, "I was thinking that you would dismiss me and just wanted to get rid of uncertainty soon! How would I know that you were also taking our relationship seriously?!"

"It's not my fault that you're terrible at noticing subtleties!" was the reproach of Roderich. Yep. He actually used those words.

PFFFF! So was GILBERT who was bad at interpreting subtleties?!

Now that was priceless!

Oh, that young lord! Someday he would kill him of laughing too hard!

"Hey, Rod," Gilbert called him between laughs, ignoring Roderich's glare of disapproval and his own previous feelings of irritation, "Why are we fighting in the middle of a mutual love confession?"

"I don't know." The aristocrat snorted, looking to the other side, disapprovingly, and crossing and uncrossing his arms over his chest, "What are you waiting for before you kiss me, you fool? Our wedding day?"

As usual, Roderich had an excellent point.

They didn't wait until marriage to kiss, of course. Two years is a long time to be passed without kissing your boyfriend.

When these two years have passed, they were able to consolidate their union in the most economically planned ceremony of history. It was a beautiful party. Gilbert served drinks to their circle of friends, making toasts not only to guests but to all possible individuals imaginable, including Martin Luther King, the chef Gordon Ramsey and Frodo. Meanwhile, Roderich joined the musicians hired for their wedding, complaining with them whenever he heard a wrong note during the perfomance, which was actually a fun activity for him.

They danced the waltz of the new couple and while his head was almost leaning on the shoulder of Gilbert Beilschmidt-Eldestein, Rod took advantage of the physical proximity of the two to complain "How can they make so many mistakes on a popular Strauss waltz? I won't even imagine how they Rachmaninov must be. Absolutely disgusting. We shouldn't have hired music students from my old conservatory and from different classes. I know that it was my idea, but why didn't you stop me, Gilbert? That was your duty!" and Gilbert just laughed very relaxed, rolling his eyes. That was the first wedding party in which they didn't have to sit at the table reserved to single guests and they never returned to that table since that occasion.

It was unfortunate that they had lost the opportunity to get discounts in restaurants by making fake engagement dinners, but hey. They always would have many fake special wedding anniversaries to use in the future.


	3. Chapter 3

_Hello, guys! Welcome to this new one-shot in this series! I'm so sorry for taking so long to post it but it's finally here!_

_Once more, I would like to thank everyone for giving me your support! I really appreciate it and I hope you will enjoy this and keep giving me motivation to write and translate my works because they really demand a lot from me and it's wonderful to see people appreciating my efforts! I'm so sorry for putting a link in the middle of text but ffnet don't let me insert images here and the image is a important part of the scene in which it appears. I'm really sorry about that._

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_I would like to give my special thanks to Flesh Delirium**(omgffghnjmkjhgfdsfghj. I can't describe how much joy your reviews bring to me! Thank you for being such a wonderful reader!**) and lawliness(**XD**) for your kind reviews and also to everyone who is following and liking this series or just appreciating its content! You're all wonderful and each one of you deserve hugs and hapiness!_

✧*.◟(ˊᗨˋ)◞.*✧ᗯ੨~ɪ̊ ْ˖⋆

_Since this one-shot is a gift to lovely and wonderful miss Zeplerfer, she wasn't my beta this time! My thanks to miss Invisibleju, my dear friend, who helped me a lot! However, since we're both brazilians and since I still changed a few things after her revision, I apologize for any typos or weird sentences that might have escaped our eyes! I captured a few at the very last moment but this is a long-ass fanfiction and I'm done with it. Seriously.=_=_

_Anyway, thanks, guys! Hope you will enjoy the chapter and maybe give some feedback to me! Cya ~_

* * *

**_**_Request by Zeplerfer: "How about PruAus where they both work at a fancy restaurant? Rod is a deaf pianist. _**_****_**_Gilbert _**_****_**_Julchen is _**_****_**_a dish washer or something who works to become _**_****_**_a _**_****_**_waitress and tries to get to know Rod."_**_**

**_**_Warnings_**_**__:__**_**_Some mentions of dysphoria and transphobia but this is a really happy and cute story! Also some sexual mentions!_**_**_****  
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* * *

03\. Ode to joy.

**The **reason I was looking for a job while studying for my very hard exams to enter in a college with a scholarship was because I pride myself in never abusing people's good will. Hail my independent spirit! I know, I know. Pretty impressive, right? It was very mature of me as an eighteen-year-old girl to have such concerns. Even Francis's parents insisted that I didn't need to worry about financial issues because they had money to spare! Buuut…. While this was true, I couldn't forget the fact that _they_ were the ones who had all that money. Since I had left home suddenly, I had nothing material in hands, which left me in an extremely uncomfortable and vulnerable position.

The thing is: I didn't want to owe anything to anyone and although, in this economy, this is something difficult to achieve at any age, due to the fact that there were some things that were vital to me but weren't considered vital to many people, I felt particularly guilty for my expenses and wanted to reduce them. There were very specific things that I wanted to pay with my own money and have some control over it.

Fortunately, an opportunity to reduce some of my debts came on a summer afternoon in which I saw a sign announcing "_Hiring waitresses_." at a restaurant that was next to a park where I liked to walk. Apparently, they wanted a girl with loads of stamina and who could work the night shift and, well, if these were their only requirements, the job was already mine. The only downside was that I also needed to buy my own uniform and submit myself to an interview, procedures I did just because I _had to_.

Surprisingly, there was a much larger number than I thought of candidates seeking a job as a waitress in the night shift. I used to think this was a profession pursued mostly by teenagers and young adults who want some extra money, but you would be surprised to see how many middle-aged ladies, exhausted and who already have other work, apply for this kind of job. It's quite sad, actually.

The advantages of hiring me? I was quite young, had completed high school (with excellent grades, by the way), knew four languages and, frankly, I was practically the super-model version of a waitress, so I could see perfectly why I was selected to work among so many other candidates that applied. I knew my merits well enough to never let myself be shaken by rumors that I had been hired only "to make the place look inclusive because nowadays this stuff sells" that came from some of my jealous and annoying co-workers.

Of course, because this is not a cliché dramatic film, there were not only enemies in my work. I genuinely liked my manager, Lizzy, who was the person who had selected me for the job and who was always over my shoulder, taking responsibility for me. Another person with whom I got along very well was one of the cooks, Mona, the chef responsible for the desserts. She was super funny and very relaxed about all things possible, including her dishes. That girl was amazing. If someone complained about a dessert made by her, she would talk to the customer personally and the two would eventually end up laughing together about some random topic that came up in the middle of their chat and they would completely forget the original purpose of the conversation. One of the waiters who worked only on weekends and knew how to do magic tricks was also pretty cool. His name was "Antonio", I think.

On that place, there were friends, enemies and Rod.

Oh, a thousand apologies! I have not mentioned Rod yet?

Rod, formally known as Roderich Eldestein, and informally known as "young lord" or "aristocrat" was the pianist who worked on the night shift at the restaurant. He added loads of sophistication to the place, not only with the classical compositions he performed, but also with his face, manners and general appearance of a duke of the nineteenth century who got lost on the borders of time and space and ended up on that restaurant.

From the first moment we met, Rod seemed like an intriguing and peculiar figure. He kinda stood up in the middle of the crowd. Our work place was merely a two star restaurant where couples went to celebrate special occasions and families came to dinner together on holidays. Although it certainly had elegance, it wasn't an exceptionally refined place. Therefore, when the young lord was with us, he always seemed to be the only guest not informed that the gala party he had been invited had changed to a casual pool party at the very last minute. Also, as anyone in a situation like that, man, he always seemed pretty pissed off.

The young lord was the personification of bitterness. He always looked like he was disapproving everything and everyone with that icy gaze of his. He was so caricatural in the expression of his distaste that I wasn't even able to get bothered with it. Rod was not my enemy or my friend. Apparently he hated us all equally and I was just one name in that giant list.

Well, to be fair, in our first month of work, I hadn't tried to talk to him at all because I held a grudge in him based on past experiences.

Let's go back in time to my first day at work, when I had found Rod to be somewhat, cough, cough, _hot_, I mean, handsome. To the time when I was with 100209657893878% of willingness to talk to him.…

At that time, we were on an empty restaurant because of the schedule. Usually, nobody goes to a restaurant like ours at five in the afternoon because the best dishes were prepared in very specific shifts. Going there on such an inconvenient hour meant that you would only get to eat some appetizers that, frankly, weren't worth the price.

The time of start of my shift seemed perfect for a newbie like me. I thought it was better to go to my workplace when it was empty and gradually get used to the rising of the customers presence than just be thrownto the lions, dealing with all the hits at once. Moreover, on my first day, this quiet moment was a great opportunity for me to socialize with my co-workers. I had not talked to many of them, including Rod.

"Hello!" That's what I exclaimed aloud, while playfully pushing my chair back and forth. I was sitting a few tables away from his piano but being loud enough to be noticed.

"…"

He didn't even move.

"My name is Julchen! Julchen Beilschmidt!" I yelled to his back, still very willing to talk with him. I thought he probably hadn't listened to me in the first time because he was very focused on the piano. In a way, that was kind of cute so I made my second attempt with a great mood. "From today, I will also be working here during this shift! What is your name?"

He continued playing as if nothing had happened.

"Oh, come on! If you don't give me your name, I'll have to give _you _a nickname! I bet you don't want me to call you 'young lord' or something like that, right?"I threatened with a slightly evil grin, teasing him just a bit.

"..."

Urgh!

Hey! What the hell! He could at least have made a sound of disapproval, I dunno! Anything was better than being ignored like that! Like I was not worth the oxygen he would waste producing a sound to address me.

"Alright, young lord." I rolled my eyes, resting my elbows on the armrests and throwing the weight of my back on the chair I was in with restrained irritation "Your choice. Look, I get it. You ain't the social type. I can accept that but, seriously, can you at least turn to me for a second? It's not polite to ignore people like that."

… Again, nothing.

"You know what?! I don't have to take this sort of attitude coming from you! Stay there with your dumb piano, aristocrat!"

And he stayed. Even after I screamed, he remained on the same position, showing me his back and absorbed in his music as if he hadn't even listened to me.

It wasn't the world's best first impression and it definitely wasn't a very encouraging experience on a first day of work when I was already quite nervous and anxious about how people were perceiving me and how they would treat me. At first, I thought he could have noticed or been told about... Well, about the stuff involving my identity. That made his rejection much more difficult to digest than a mere statement of dislike in any other context. In other words, intentionally or not, let's say he hit me right where it hurt the most with that glacial silence of supposed contempt. So much that I needed to sit alone for fifteen minutes in the bathroom, taking deep breaths and beating my fist against my knee repeatedly to control my anger and frustration and decrease the temperature of my face.

He wasn't the first conservative prick I had met and wouldn't be the last for sure. I needed to get used to dealing with them without letting it affect my life. Believe me, I had faced infinitely greater obstacles than a pretentious dude with a pompous hair sitting on a piano. I wouldn't let myself be defeated by such a weak-ass offense. I was far above that.

So I washed my face, hitting my cheeks for a few seconds, launched a confident smile in the mirror and left the bathroom, pretending nothing had happened. As if I did not know there was a piano there, I set to work excitedly, cleaning tables, greeting the first customers and getting used to move around on that indigo dress at the knees that was now my uniform. If the aristocrat could ignore my existence, I certainly could ignore his.

* * *

I just got over my resentment about the young lord when I noticed he didn't have anything against me personally. He just hated everyone universally. Regardless of race, gender, nationality, sexual orientation... We were all equally annoying in his eyes. Heh! What an enlighted human being, don't you agree? Martin Luther King would be so proud.

Okay, now back to talking seriously, Rod was a very, very quiet guy. In fact, I couldn't remember a time when I had seen him talking to anyone, although Mona every night did something I couldn't quite understand on the piano with him that could be considered an interaction, though there was no proper dialogue involved. Taking this brief exception, in general, you would find him playing or studying his scores, always ignoring any approximations.

Completed his work, he stood up, picked up his coat and left without doing more than giving us a stressed and lethargic nod, not waiting for retribution before turning and leaving.

Wow. What an asshole.

No wonder that the nicknames "young lord" and "aristocrat" I created spreaded so fast!…... Yes, I was the creator of these nicknames by which he soon became known throughout the restaurant and, to be honest, I really don't know if I should be proud of this vast evil influence I had over people.

However, considering that no one did nothing about his rude behavior, I wouldn't be the first to make a scene about that. If he hated everyone the same way, I would not be the brave warrior princess who would change everything and save the day.

For a long time, I learned about Rod without exchanging a single word with him. All I knew about Rod came from people's mouths and, thinking back, that was totally weird. Within weeks of work, I had never heard a word from him._**Literally**_. I mean, I didn't even know what his voice sounded like. What the fuck.

Anyway, I just got over my anger towards him when I had already a month and a half of work and only returned to be willing to talk to that guy in the second month. Over time, my curiosity won, defeating my established principles of not talking to Rod and I made a second attempt.

This time, I walked to the piano where he was, as usual. I would not be ignored again.

"Yo! Hello, young lord!" I greeted him being cynically friendly. I called his attention, pushing his shoulder lightly. "I am Julchen. I've been working here since last month and I think we never spoke before."

He turned to me and gave me a long look with a mix of confusion and recrimination. He didn't look pleased with my presence there.

"Weeeeell, I was just wondering..." I crossed my arms behind his back, alterning the weight of my body that I applied in each one of my legs "You're Rod, right? How old are you? Are you a college student?"

In response to all my questions, he sighed, shook his head as if considering me a hopeless case and returned to play his piano.

HEY!

"Why do you have to be such a dick?!"I shook his shoulder harder "I'm talking to you!"

He turned to me again, put his hand over his forehead, took a notebook that was over his piano and wrote the most pompous handwriting I had ever seen in my entire life:

"_I can't hear you. I'm deaf. You big, big fool"_

... Ah.

I brought my hand to my mouth involuntarily, as we usually do on instinct when we received a shocking revelation or when we let something slip through our mouth which we repent of speaking. In case, I was going through the two situations at once.

Rod was a hearing impaired person?! Why no one had informed me about it?! Now I was feeling so guilty! I had made a big mistake on his character. All this time, he was just a tragic victim of his physical limitations! To think I was so rude and unfair to him!

"Oh really?! My apologies, I ...!"

"_Obviously, I still don't hear you, which is good, since you seem quite stupid._"

... My sympathy for Roderich's situation lasted the total of ten seconds.

"Give me that!"

"**I am not stupid! Do you have to be so rude when you're talking to people?! And here I was starting to feel sorry for you!**"

Soon after writing this answer, at first, I got worried if it would seem offensive to say that I felt sorry for him just because I found out he had a disability.

"_Improve your handwriting._"

Again, my concern only lasted few seconds.

GODDAMNIT, ROD. I WAS TRYING TO FEEL BAD FOR YOU.

"**That's ALL you have to say?!**"

"_Ask Miss Elizaveta to bring a glass of water here._"

"**SERIOUSLY?**!"

"_A cold glass, please_."

That was our starting point, I think. Our official starting point at least.

Of course, I went to get the fucking glass for him. Although he could be a jerk at times, he was a jerk with whom I was indebted. I had spread infamous nicknames for him, before understanding the real reasons for his behavior, and this was an incorrect attitude on my part. True that since he had begun to communicate, he had only shown a pretty annoying attitude… Still, urgh. I couldn't tell if he usually behaved in that manner which coincided with what I had assumed about him or if he was behaving in that way_precisely _because he knew about what I previously thought of him.

It was a move similar to the one principle of chemistry that we can never know how particles actually behave in certain circumstances, for the very instruments of observation are already producing certain changes in the movement of atoms.

Anyway, I didn't wannna owe anything to that guy. I would pick the damn water from it and get rid of my debt.

I handed the cup with a sullen face and he graciously received it, as if picking up the sacred chalice to drink the elixir of immortality. He even closed his eyes as he drank the contents of the glass. Who closes his eyes to drink water, like, what the fuck ...?

_"Thank you._" - He wrote after finishing his cup, when I was just about to leave due to having no patience left to deal with him. It was a surprise to see that sincere answer and because of that, I got momentarily stuck on that place.

Hm ... So even he had limits on how rude and shameless he could be. I was a bit, just a bit happy to get a heartfelt thanks from him. I mean, on that entire time, I had waited for him to finish, thinking he would complain of the water's temperature or something like that and it was an unexpected joy to receive a small legitimate reaction of gratitude.

That made me think about how would be the gentle side of the aristocrat, if he had one.

**"****You know, I always thought you were just a jerk and that was the reason why you didn't talk to anyone. Now I understand. This was just ONE of the reasons...**"

"_Whenever you feel like criticizing any one, just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had. _– F. Scott Fitzgerald, 'The Great Gatsby'."

You know, he didn't have to make the reference as if he was writing a scientific article.

"**Does it mean that you just did not have opportunities to talk to us due to your disability and otherwise you would be a social butterfly?**" – I felt a little guilty for my joke on the previous note after he said that.

"_No, to be very honest, I like just to use this quote whenever people offend me for any reason because they get thoughtful about it, associating the quote with my disability, and stop disturbing me_."

"**Wow, the effort you put into being an annoying dude is admirable. I'm impressed.**"

"_What's your name, miss_?" – If you only looked at the message only, you might thought that it was an attempt to be friendly, however it was obvious for me that he was questioning it as a strict teacher asks a student who got late in class: "What's your name, young lady?". It was like he was about to make me stand in the corridor.

"**Julchen Beilschmidt!**" – I proudly wrote my name. My beautiful and lovely name.

"_Julchen Beilschmidt, you're a rude person_."

"**Yep and you have all the rights to complain about me because you're, like, super-sweet.**" – I pointed out. To the immense displeasure of Rod, I won that discussion with this straightforward argument.

He snorted unhappy and returned to playing piano. I laughed, shrugged and went back to the tables, thinking that what we had to talk to each other would end there.

I was awfully mistaken, I might confess here. After all, we were just at the beginning of the beginning of what we would have to talk to each other.

* * *

Since Rod, despite all odds, was the owner of an interesting personality and always answered me very frankly when I made him questions, it had become a habit of mine to talk a bit with the young lord as the night customers had not yet arrived.

Of course, even before the customers arrived, we had work to do. I needed to take advantage of the emptiness of the restaurant to clean tables, changing light bulbs, changing the salt, put the menus in the right places and etc. Roderich, in turn, needed to use that time to rehearse and to see if the piano was tuned with the help of Mona (who apparently was a remarkable musician as a teenager and had apparently given up because "I don't know. I was just no longer into it! Ha, ha!"- a motive that was pretty much like her).

As I was one of the first employers of the night shift to arrive, because punctuality was my strong point and also because I really needed that job, as soon as Rod appeared, usually when there was about fifteen minutes to the start of our shift, I usually took this chance to greet him and exchange a few quick words with him.

The truth is that there was not much that Rod could do about the tuning of the piano. He could only wait for Mona finish her work, occasionally writing on paper in large letters "_DON'T MAKE MISTAKES. BE EXTREMELY CAREFUL. YOUR DISTRACTION WOULD__AFFECT NO REPUTATION __OTHER__ THAN MINE_. ".

Mona, on the other hand, always answered as follows:

";D"

... And so, I always went to distract Mr. Grumpy to prevent Mona was murdered by strangulation with a score as the murder weapon.

"**Besides 'The Great Gatsby', what do you like to read, aristocrat?**"

"_I'm a big fan of plays scripts. Shakespeare and Oscar Wilde mainly. I believe it is because of my love for opera. Furthermore, I appreciate the pragmatic trait present in the flow of a script_. "

"**I dunno why but I pictured you as the sort of guy who is a fan of the old romantic novels.**"

"_I like many aspects of the Romantic movement but I'm not truly fond of their literature. I hate melodramas about rushed, impatient couples with serious communication issues. With regard to the description of natural scenery, I can enjoy some taken excerpts from novels, but I have an absolute preference for the Classic literature in this aspect_."

"**I thought you liked operas! Don't they also have the whole 'rushed melodramatic couples' thing?**"

"_Not necessarily. Operas were produced at different times, with different inspirations and in different regions. They were popularized during the Romantic movement and they caught the nationalist feature present in this artistic movement, so there are various influences of mythology and legends of each country within them_."

"**Wait, as far as I know, many operas were based on romances, right? Also, if you don't like melodramatic couples, how in the world do you enjoy Shakespeare? 'Romeo and Juliet' is known as the greatest work of love of all time**."

"_Romeo and Juliet is not a work of love. It is a warning about the risks of precocious teen dating and the dangers of poor communication._"

While the young lord was not quite the jokester type, I discovered early on that phrases like this, written in a most serious way, were quite effective in making me laugh and he could use his sarcasm very well when he wanted. He was pretty hilarious in his own peculiar way and I could always count on him to cheer up my day and unwind me of work tension.

"**Goddamnit, young lord. I thought you at least say it's a lesson about how love overcomes hatred. The dangers of poor communication? Are you serious?**"

"_Love overcomes hate? More than five people were killed in three days for the sake of said love, including the couple itself. I don't understand your reasoning. Obviously hatred overcomes love in this story_. "

I worked at the restaurant six times a week. My only break was on Sunday and since when I wasn't working, I was studying almost all and every day in the public library of my city, to obtain good results in exams and get a scholarship to a go to good university, I had few to none time for my personal hobbies and much less to go out with my friends. Thanks to that, these conversations with Rod quickly became a valuable and indispensable part of my routine.

As I said, being with him was loads of fun in a unique way.

Mona had a great sense of humor, Tonio had a calm and warm personality and Lizzy was a great company to go to the bowling or tennis courts. I was very fond of nearly everyone in my workplace. However, despite being compatible in our personalities, I didn't have much in common with any of them to keep a conversation interesting.

I think the age difference helped to form a subtle barrier between us. It's kind of embarrassing to talk about early adulthood problems like "Dude, schedule medical appointments is so frightening. What do I do? I don't want to go alone there. What if the doctor asks me for some previous exam? What if he passes me an instruction and I don't get it? Doesn't it seems, like, really dangerous?", with people who are commenting on their divorce (Lizzy), newborn coming (Tonio), or concrete and detailed plans to open their own restaurant one day (Mona).

Rod, in turn, was the holder of certain attributes which facilitated our interactions. We were in a similar age group, we had a mutual freedom to tease each other in a friendly way (which always creates the best friendships, truth be told) and, as I already mentioned, he was just an hilarious type of guy that always made me laugh and who also couldn't resist giving me an occasional faint smile accompanied by an eye roll, after listening to my funny jokes. He had a very subtle humorous side that was very fascinating to watch. How to dislike the company of such a person? In addition to all that, he understood enough about art, which was quite interesting for me, as a person who wanted to study history at university. Talking to him, plus being interesting, was quite instructive!

**"Young lord, young lord! I want to make a request! Since you know so much about art and can play the piano so well... Do you also have other artistic skills? For example, could you draw a bird for me? Pleeeeaseeeee?"**

"_If you insist_." – He used these words, although I only request it once, because that was Roderich for you. I could see that he looked somewhat pleased with my praise and he probably accepted my request because of that.

I was quite curious, I won't deny it. After all, I knew that besides the piano, Rod knew how to play the violin, cooking and knitting. He was probably one of those Leonardo da Vinci guys with multiple skills. Taking into account how good he was in his favorite instrument, I couldn't wait to see how his artistic style would be reflected in a drawing.

After a few minutes of focused work, he showed me the following image:

[ . /1e952b5bb07bcabc7b3820779c2c34ff/tumblr_inline_nxq1aoulWh1qkgnpo_ ]

Signing down "_Roderich Eldestein_" with that impeccable calligraphy of him.

I burst into laughter so intense that I had to put my arms around my belly to support myself and not fall to my knees. The young lord was staring at me with such a scolding face that should make me feel bad, but it just made my laughter access even worse. To think that this serious and scowling dude had been the creator of that masterpiece ...! Pfffff! I was still almost dying when I wrote my answer and I think that only I was able to give it since I wrote it instead of saying it because, man, I was choking in my own saliva at that time.

In a superhuman effort, I supported my hand in Rod's piano tail and wrote in a letter made hastily came out in scrawl:

"**OMFG, YOUNG LORD. WHAT THE HELL. I ASKED FOR THE DRAWING OF A BIRD, NOT OF THE LAST BEAST OF THE APOCALYPSE.**"

_"BE QUIET. I TRIED A MINIMALIST APPROACH._"- He protested in revolt, however a soft blush spread across his face betraying that he was aware that this was such an ugly drawing that it seemed to have been made by a five years old child and that terribly blatant excuse wouldn't cover it.

"**HOLY SHIT, YOU LIE EVEN WORSE THAN YOU DRAW. SERIOUSLY. WHAT IS THIS THING THAT SEEMS TO HAVE COME OUT OF MY WORST NIGHTMARES? IT REALLY IS A BIRD?**"

I was laughing more quietly when I wrote this second message and now that my body was coming back to relax, my spelling has become a bit more readable and I started to feel my stomach hurt. Oh dear.

_"IF YOU THINK YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO CRITICIZE ME, DO BETTER THAN ME_."

Oh, Rod. You poor clueless, innocent being.

"**LOL, okay!**"

To Rod's misfortune, it was a Monday, the emptiest day at the restaurant. He made the wrong order to the wrong person at the wrong time and the wrong place. I had plenty of time to produce a realistic figure in grayscale of the profile of a crow with the pencil he gave me. The same pencil he had used to produce "the thing".

Super-casually, I handed my drawing for him, smiling through one of the edges of my mouth with eyes closed in a relaxed attitude, playfully spinning with the bottom of my feet as he examined my drawing.

_"YOU PLANNED ALL THIS JUST TO BRAG, DIDN'T YOU?"_ \- That was the indignant reply I received in response and believe me, it was much more flattering than a compliment would be.

"**Heh, heh! Some people just have the gift to do whatever they want with perfection. We are the first components of the next evolutionary chain of mankind. Accept defeat with honor, young lord.**"

"_Very well. If you can do anything you want with perfection, I'd love to hear your run Liszt's version of Campanella._"

Tsk! Damn, he caught me faster than I wanted! I rolled my eyes and curved the corners of my mouth in distaste.

"**Okay, okay, Mr. Joy Killer. I'll give in and admit that although I can do what I want with perfection, I need a few years to get certain things right…**"– 'To MIGHT get certain things right', I admitted only in my head.

"_How did you learn how to draw?_"

**"****Oh, how I would like to have some deep and motivational story to say about my connection with art! Unfortunately, the truth is that I specialized in drawing birds because I was always scribbling during my boring classes in high school. My classroom was on the third floor and I sat next to a glass window so I always closely watched the birds walking on the parapet. I tried to copy their image with higher fidelity that I could achieve. Days and days in this routine resulted in my talent to draw some types of birds. It's a very specific skill, though.**"

"_I suppose you were a terrible student then._"

"Hey, hey! Now that's all you have to say after being awarded the honor of receiving an exclusive narrative of a piece of my past? Woe is me, young lord! Well, just to throw it in your face, nah, I was an excellent student. One of the best, actually. I just got easily bored in meaningless or boring classes and choose to study at home instead of listening to the teacher. My brain was the best teacher of all"

"_You're exaggerating again, aren't you_? "– He raised an eyebrow with a skeptical air.

I laughed and shook my face sideways, putting my left hand over my chest and dramatically forging offense.

"**Oh, heavens, young lord! Aren't you afraid of hurting my fragile maiden heart with your constant doubts about the extent of my abilities****?**"

"_No._"

"**FOR FUCK SAKES, ROD. IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO HAVE A TOUCHING, MEANINGFUL MOMENT WITH YOU**. "

That's what I said. However, in a few months, I would discover that it was not impossible. It was hard, yes, but it was something achievable.

To reach this point in my relationship with him, I needed three more months of constant interaction with him, many discussions, sometimes even heated arguments about History, Art and about our daily lives. It also took notable increases in my ease of getting lost in the flow of our conversation and immerse myself within them (which unfortunately came with the consequent scolding that I got many times for getting distracted during work) and, finally, my conclusion that it would be nice if I could learn sign language to communicate more easily with Rod since writing took a long time and made my wrist hurt in some circumstances.

One day, I was lying in my bed, wearing headphones, with eyes on the ceiling, while I was relaxing my body after a heavy marathon study in the library, and I was thinking about this whole issue with Rod and I came to the conclusion that we probably could have longer and spontaneous dialogues if we didn't have to make turns to write at the notebook, having to wait for long, long minutes just to read a message like "_I had a moderately quiet day. If I had to express them in a composition, I would choose a work by Debussy, I believe. How are you?_".

Looking at this way, learning sign language was totally awesome, right? However, there was a problem.

... It wouldn't seem a bit weird if I learned sign language just for a reason like that? I mean, no one in our work had bothered to learn it. Not even our manager. Not to mention that technically Rod was just the guy I always talked to in the early hours. I still didn't feel comfortable enough to talk to him at the end of the workday and now I would learn a new language for him and him only? What kind of impression that would make of me? Would I look too clingy? Too desperate? Not to mention that I was kinda busy lately...

Okay, there was not one but several problems.

On the other hand, I thought it would be epic to see Rod's face when he realized that among my many skills, it was included the ability to use sign language. Heh! He probably would be so amazed! It would be hilarious! Also, how nice would be to surprise him like that? He would no longer ignore my merits and probably feel lucky in having a bright and totally awesome friend like me.

Pros and cons. Cons and pros.

When in doubt on this issue, I consulted Francis about it and he not only encouraged me greatly to learn the sign language, as he said he would report on any educational center for people with hearing disabilities where I could take lessons. I was fine with it and even somewhat more excited with the idea that it could work but then he just HAD to say something among the lines of "_Love really overcomes all barriers_" giving me THAT look. That one secretive look that only best friends know how to make and that annoys the hell out of probably know which one I'm talking a response to it, I told him to shut his mouth, told him to go screw himself and also that he really should look for those centers because I would charge it from him. He laughed at my face and left my room humming that one song of Megara in Hercules, dodging the pillow I had thrown at him, before closing the door behind him.

What can I say? Best friends act like that with each other.

I kept my classes in secret until I learned enough not to embarrass myself in front of Rod. Ideally, I'd kept secret until I could be at the Virginia Woolf level in the art of using words while using sign language but that didn't work. The problem is that my eagerness to show him what I had learned was huge and escaped through my body language from time to time. Man, I was so tired of making excuses to explain the random laughter that I let out a few times when I looked at him, unable to disguise it even covering my mouth.

So one day, I just touched his shoulder and instead of picking up the notebook as usual, I signaled with my hands:

"**Hello! Good day! How are you doing?**"

In anticipation, I was laughing, thinking that he was about to show a mixture of awe and excitement that could never be seen in that neutral and impassive face, however ... He was not exactly "amazed". He was confused. If there was any trace of excitement there, I swear that it would be required surgical devices to find them, since they were probably at a microscopic level.

He blinked once, twice, partially opened his mouth and ... he took the notebook on the piano and began writing on it very calmly, as if nothing had happened.

I was a little offended by that.

Wow. He wouldn't even give me a chance to try? He assumed I was so bad at it that I wouldn't be able to understand his answer? Tsk! I knew I should have started with a impacting and elaborated sentence to impress him enough and ...!

"_I can't read sign language."_

BOOOOOOOOOOM! Plot-twist!

"**SERIOUSLY, ROD?!**" – I asked in disbelief and partly indignant. Not that this was Rod's fault, but damn! I had really done weeks of sign language classes just to receive this answer?

"_I don't see how any part of my sentence could be interpreted as a joke._"

"**But…. you are the person with a hearing d****isability**** here!**"

"_Oh, of course. True, indeed. When I lost my hearing, the part of my brain responsible for language acquisition was lit up with the sudden knowledge of the sign language. What you say makes complete and perfect sense. Shame on me being caught in lies like that. _"

Those who doubt that you can adequately convey sarcasm in written form, definitely need to be introduced to Rod.

What he said made sense. I had deduced that he would know sign language just as you assume that a native person in a region know the language there. Like something that simply was acquired naturally by necessity. I didn't consider the hypothesis that Rod had chosen not to learn the language and now that I thought about it, I hadn't realized until then that maybe the aristocrat was born without that disability and acquired it at some point in his personal history.

"**I thought you were born that way**…"

"_If I had been born that way, how I would play piano or have preferences for certain_ _composers? You foolish fool._"

Okay, what he said made complete sense sooooo… Why not slightly change the subject so I wouldn't have to admit my defeat? HAHA…!

"**So that means that you actually **_**became **_**like that, huh? For how long? It was a recent incident**?"

"_Five years in December._"

It was a more specific answer than I expected. Rod seemed to be giving me an opening to ask questions. It could be a gesture of trust on his part, so I was very careful to accept it.

"**What happened, Rod?**"

It should be a difficult story for him. Rod loved music. He was so obsessed with that piano but… He ended up losing the sense that it was more important to him. We talked all the time about music and composers and he simply couldn't listen to a perfomance anymore. That was pretty tragic. I would not blame him if he was not willing to share his past with me.

However, after a brief thoughtful pause in which he was probably analyzing the meaning of my expression, he sighed in resignation and wrote for about fifteen minutes while I waited patiently, swinging my legs forward and back on the bench where I was, not minding the free time that I was "losing" to have this conversation with him.

"_Okay, let me start from the very beginning. When I was a kid I had a flawless audition and I loved music. My father noticed this and encouraged me to practice the violin and the a child who couldn't stand children, it was wonderful for me to acquire an individualistic hobby relative to my tastes and I truly devoted myself to it. Before long, people were calling me a child prodigy and my teachers were directing me to increasingly talented tutors. I started to make concerts in recitals, participating in contests and thought about building a career with my gift._

_Five years ago, I overslept before an important concert and had to leave home in a hurry. I can't drive but I had a driver whom I was rushing incessantly. He tried to take a shortcut, but the area he chose was not well signalized. It was dark, it was raining and we were in a hurry. Then some idiot had the idea to have the same stupid behavior than ours and we collided. I don't know about the details of my rescue. I remember that I actually remained conscious for a long time but when I try to recall what exactly happened is like trying to clean the lens of fogged glasses. When I woke up in the hospital, my parents were sitting on my side. I remember that I was astonished by their presence. They lived in another state and I couldn't believe they had made such a long journey because of a problem that was mine. I opened my mouth to say that they should not have taken such a hasty attitude, however when I did what I always did to talk, I simply didn't hear my voice. Gradually, I started to realize how quiet this room was. That the hospital as a whole seemed too quiet. Absolutely silent. I sought to calm myself, thinking that hospitals were peaceful places but when my parents woke up and started crying and I couldn't hear their sobs, I realized what had happened. Well, I needed to get some time in the wheelchair and physical therapy. My column was not really affected by the accident, though. As an irony of fate, the only part of my body that was affected by it was just the portion of my brain responsible for my hearing._"

"**How old were you when this happened?**"

"_17._"

He was younger than me when his dreams and plans for the future were stolen from him.

As Rod, I had faced a lot of heavy stuff too early, being thrown away of my house after I came out to my parents, losing the possibility of recommendation to college from several of my teachers and losing many friends in the middle of my way just to have a chance of being myself.

Fortunately, now I was in a warm home with people who accepted me, supported and welcomed me. I was making my own way to college and had gained new friends, keeping only those from the past who really respect me and appreciate me for who I really was. I had suffered several losses in the last few years but I guess I had also gained many things in the process. My freedom, my self-esteem, my comfort with my own body... Of course, there were many, many problems arising from that dramatic change in my life and I knew I would face much more as a trans woman. I was dealing with them with determination and if I couldn't solve some of them, I was, at least, attenuating them with my own strength... Still, in Rod's case, all the determination of the world wouldn't contribute in a single drop to make him listen again.

I didn't know what to say to him.

"**Man, this sucks.**"

"_Well, usually the career of a musician would be ruined, so I think I was lucky to be a genius. By the time I sat down at a piano for the first time after the accident, I felt as if I had collapsed inside. I was disconsolate. To think that I would never hear those sounds coming from my piano_ _, I would never play them again… That was a storm in my heart and probably the greatest loss I could suffer in my life. It was as if someone had me torn in half. I felt like the most valuable part of me was gone forever. It was a surprise when, in spite of my fears, I touched the first key and realized that I could hear the sound. Not literally, of course, but I knew so well that piano that each key in which I touched seemed to produce a different sound in my brain. Reading a score produces an equivalent effect on my brain. Thus, I stopped mopping around. What could I do if my destiny was to be the new Beethoven? I really didn't want to continue to make concerts, though, since people kept trying to create a commercial appeal using my disability. That's why I like working here. People just enjoy my music for what it is, without knowing my circumstances._"

On a personal level, I could understand the satisfaction that he was mentioning. I was always very, very happy when people referred to me as "that girl" or "that young lady" casually in genuine ignorance about my past or about the details of my identity. It might sound silly, considering that I was accepted as I was by several people who knew about my story, but hearing it from a stranger who had no factor of judgment, who was simply was referring to me by genre they assumed that I belonged, gave a special touch to the experience.

"**Why didn't you learned sign language?"**

"_It seemed like too much work and not worth the effort. Let's be honest, in my tiny circle of acquaintances, who would bother to talk to me using that language?_"

I pointed quite emphatically to the sides of my head with both of my hands.

YEAH! WHO would ever learn it? Which specific person in this whole wide world would do it? If only there was a single individual who had done, I dunno, WEEKS OF SIGNING LANGUAGE CLASSES to talk with Rod using that! But who am I kidding? Who could ever be so dedicated? There's no way to find such a person. What a great _mystery_!

"_That doesn't count as sign language._" – He wrote. Yet, there was a gentle note of amusement that escaped the edges of his mouth and betrayed that he was pleased and amused by my gesture.

"**Aren't you interested to learn, Rod? There is a place where they teach people with hearing impairment ...**"

I was in mid-sentence when he snatched the notebook from me and quickly wrote:

"_No._"

"**But it would be much easier to talk to you if you knew ...**"

He snatched the notebook again and wrote in letters that occupied almost an entire page:

"_NO._"

"**Okay, so what can we do? This method of using paper doesn't allow a lot of spontaneity.**"

"_That's not a problem since I'm already not spontaneous_."

"**Also, it takes two thousand centuries for us to finish writing a message in some cases.**"

"_What do you expect me to do, Miss Julchen?_" – He asked, using that "tone" of teacher about to send a student to the corridor that always appeared when he wrote my name like that.

I put my hand under my chin and pondered for a few seconds about a solution that would be good for both of us when suddenly a light bulb lit up in my brain. How had I not thought of this before?

"**I know, I know! I have an idea! Why don't we start to use our mobile phones to exchange text messages?**"

"_I don't have one of those._"

To be honest, I was not that surprised.

"**Why not?**" – I asked with a pout and a piercing stare of disapproval. Rod wasn't making this easy for me.

"_I'm not fond of technologies._"

As expected.

"**Rod, stop playing the neighborhood bitter old man. Using phones would be a much more convenient way to communicate! Typing takes much less work than writing!**"

The idea of less work was a very strong appeal for Mr. Little-Energy-To-Matters-Not-Related-To-My-Piano and the young lord hesitated in his decision.

"_I don't know. What you say makes sense but, on the other hand, it wouldn't take a good amount of work to get one of these cellphones and learn to use them?_"

"**More work than staying writing by hand each one of our messages? 'Course not! Typing is easier than writing! Why do you think that the press was invented in the eighteenth century, young lord? Now, come on, if you switch to the text messaging system, I swear that I will let you send me those videos with documentaries about people from the past that you always mention in our conversations but I'm always too lazy to check.**"

I could see a great spark of interest appearing in his eyes.

"_Alright then._"

"**Awesome!**" – I smiled. Score!

"_I will know if you don't watch the videos." _– He scolded me, glancing towards me rather suspicious and accusatory by advance.

"**No probs! I'll watch them! An amazing person like me never breaks a promise!**"

"_Very well_. _In that case, please help me buy one of these devices that you, young people, are using nowadays._"

"**You're only four years older than me, Rod.**"

* * *

I don't agree with the opinion of older generations that technologies are isolating and separating people. The point that the older generations don't get is that before these people were forced to talk to those who were around them, even if their company wasn't pleasant, and that was why people in the same neighborhood talked more with each other and all that. You just didn't have a choice. Now, by using the internet, you can select who you would _like _to chat and hence why many times you can come to more reliable, stable and genuinely fun relationships within it than in your circle of relations outside the web.

For example, despite his initial resistance, Rod had become relatively quickly accustomed to our communication via messages and soon he was sending me all day messages, proving that if you really are compatible with someone, these sort of devices serves to bring you closer, not the other way around. When the great realization that the Internet made it easy for you to exhibit your interests to others occurred to him, he had something that I can only describe as "a wave of euphoria" with this phenomenon that went on for _days. _I started to get awakened every day, two in the morning, by the sound of my phone getting messages.

_"Check this documentary about Pompeii_."

_"Check the site of the Metropolitan Museum in New York._"

_"Check the photo of this cat._"

_"__Check the photo of this other cat._"

_"If you were to evaluate on a scale of 0 to 10, how would you rate each cat? Broken numbers are valid._"

_"I need coffee._"

_"__Check this picture of my coffee._"

_"Here is the picture of my cup without the coffee._"

"_PS: I drank the coffee, if that's not clear._"

_"What do you think of the misconceptions that people have of Epicureanism and hedonism notions as an unregulated pursuit of pleasures when the real philosophy in question, explains that everything in excess is not good for you? That doesn't bother you? Write your opinion about it in at least ten lines._"

It can be said that we were even, though. I did sent several emojis to him and he ALWAYS fell in my Rick Rolls so I was also having my share of fun at his expense.

The internet has brought us closer. Previously, I could only talk to Rod for a few minutes in the free time we had before starting our work, but being the person who had introduced to the wonders of phone messages, I was also the person who received all his excitement with this discovery and everything he wanted to share with the world.

I was quite happy with the development of our relationship. Rod and I had become great friends.

Ha, ha! But remember what I had talked about the first impression I had of him and how I thought he was kinda hot? Ha, ha! _Yeah_…

* * *

Since the initial misunderstanding between us had been corrected and our relationship had acquired a good level of intimacy, my interactions with the young lord soon allowed me to recognize his qualities and one in particular struck me on a seemingly normal day when I made him roll his eyes and smile softly at a joke I made about his drawing skills while we were sitting side by side on his piano… You know, looking better Rod was an extremely good looking guy.

Oh.

Fuck, I had totally forgot about that.

Receiving the effects of this belated recognition started a process inside me that began as something very slow and gradual and later became an avalanche. My initial denial helped me for a while, but from the moment I stopped resisting and let the waves carry me, I become constantly tormented by the fact that this aristocrat, Roderich Eldestein, was a ridiculously attractive guy and, more specifically speaking, the guy whom I was hopelessly attracted to.

Holy shit. I was so screwed.

Seriously, why? Why him? I had so many male friends! Some of them also had great looks, even!

Liking Rod was very hard. I won't say it was the worst thing in the world because it wasn't. Still, man, it was so difficult dealing with a crush on a guy like Rod. Someone whom I was afraid to flirt because I didn't want he to end up embarrassing me by accident, giving totally wrong interpretations to my subtle flirtations and then confronting me with a direct "_If I'm mistaken, what did you mean? Explain yourself, please. In a minimum of five lines._" Urghhh.

I couldn't take risks flirting with him indirectly. At the same time, it was a little intimidating to think of flirting with him shamelessly. Who knows what reaction he would have if he knew I was attracted to him.

The young lord was hard to read in most of the time. Especially if you were under pressure. If I dared to flirt openly with him, I could may think he was taking it all in good until the moment he got up and send me the message "_Please don't talk to me ever__again._"

Like that Avril Lavigne song, why did everything had to be so complicated?

Stuck in this pessimistic scenario, I could only take advantage of some opportunities and hope with all my heart that it was Rod to somehow take my openings ahead.

One day, an unexpected opportunity arose spontaneously to me.

**"****Rod, are you going to work on Christmas?**" – I wrote it on a December night. I used the notebook so I could add a picture of a bearded Santa Claus flying in a sleigh next to my question mark.

He took the notebook and wrote this answer:

"_Yes, on the eve and on Christmas._"

"**Workaholic.**"

_"__It's not like I had anything in mind before taking this decision. My parents are traveling on a second honeymoon vacation they decided to take to rekindle their romance. Working on these two days, I'll earn more money to do what I already like to do. It sounds like a good plan._"

Before I could get the notebook back to give my response, he added quickly:

"_And you?_"

"**Me what?"**

"_Judging by your petulant behavior, I assume you must have other plans for your holiday._"

Well ... I also had nothing specific in mind for my Christmas. I was going to dinner with Francis, his new girlfriend and his parents on the Christmas's eve, but it was pretty much that. I wasn't planning to work. After all, I could have sworn that Rod probably would be spending his entire Christmas sleeping on the couch of his house, so I was thinking about enjoying my day off and eat an pot of ice cream by myself, watching Netflix and then maybe playing some Skyrin matches. I knew there would be a celebration party at work at December 25 after the night turn was over, but parties were not exactly my thing and I assumed they surely wouldn't be Rod thing.

Knowing that he would work on the 25th and would be in the restaurant on the day of the party changed things a lot.

**"****Not really. I was thinking of … **" – I would write the truth, my initial plan to make my holiday the combo "bed, ice cream, netflix, video game" but I changed my mind in mid-sentence and wrote in bold letters – "… **spending Christmas's eve with the Bonnefoy family and it's pretty much it.**"

"_Oh, that family with whom you live?_"

**"****Yes, they did a lot for me. It will be nice to spend the eve with them. I'm thinking of buying some souvenirs to them with my bonus salary. It seems that Francis wants to introduce his new girlfriend to us. Man, the girl is from Canada and came here just to spend Christmas with him. She must really like him.**"

"_Didn't you said that__your current guardians had plenty of money? They probably would be able to afford any item you want to give them. If I were you, I would save my money._ "

I gave an apparently irritated response but I was laughing too hard to be taken seriously and there was more teasing than resentment in my eyes.

"**GODDAMNIT, ARISTOCRAT! The thought is what counts! You never learned this lesson in those Christmas movies that are shown on television at the end of the year?!**"

"_Oh, I see. I understand now. In that case, it wouldn't be in better taste to prepare something homemade for them?_"

Huh? Rod, of all people, was giving a cute suggestion like that? Unexpected.

"**Who would guess? So even you have a sensitive side, young lord?**".

"_That 'even' was unnecessary. I gave that advice because I usually make desserts as a way to express my gratitude to my acquaintances and it works __fine__ for me._"

"**Nice. I don't know how to cook, though.**"

"_You can knit gloves for them_."

"**Nope, I can't knit either.**"

"_Frankly, how are you managing your adult life?_"

"**Wait, hold on! I don't want to hear it from a person who lives about to be buried by their own clothes! I've seen pictures of that post-apocalyptic setting you call 'your room', remember?**"

"_In my defense, technically, you're not 'hearing' this from me._"

FOR FUCKS SAKES, ROD.

"**YOU KNOW WHAT I MEANT, ROD**."

"_Why don't you use your ability to draw that you brag about so much?_"

"**Nah, that's just a hobby. Moreover, as I said, I only know how to draw birds. Some kinds of birds. Wouldn't be kind of weird to give each member of the Bonnefoy family a different drawing of a crow? It wouldn't seem like I am inviting them to join a secret cult or something?**"

"_I can't deny that this might happen. In short, this means__you will be spending this holiday season with family Bonnefoy._"

"**No, I'm probably coming to work at Christmas.**"

After writing this response, I became a bit shy at his surprised reaction and laughing nervously, I wrote:

"**After all, there's going to be a party here after work, right?**"

That was not enough. My heart was still agitated and apprehensive.

"**It would be nice to have some extra money.**"

Okay, now I needed to get it to sound less like an idea I just had, after hearing he would work at Christmas's. I needed to imply that I had it all planned from the very beginning.

**"****To buy gifts to the Bonnefoy's, as I said.**"

Good, good. That was a smooth exit. Repeating previous sentences as if they were part of a large pre-made plan.

_"__As I said, that's good thinking. Moreover, to be honest, I appreciate having some company with whom I can tolerate that Christmas celebration._"

Little did Rod know, but I had several secret plans architected to that party.

It was my big chance! I finally got a great opportunity to show my attractiveness to Rod without making explicit that I was doing it for him! Fuck yeah!

In a Christmas party, I could dress up super-well and make Rod so surprised, he would be like the male protagonist on those repetitive scenes of heteronormative movies and let out a 'Wow... You... You look great...' when I came out of the women's locker room, looking stunningly elegant and absolutely gorgeous. And that without him knowing that I dressed up for him! Technically, I would be just getting dressed according to the occasion! HA, HA, HA!

Not to mention, being Christmas, there was a chance they put mistletoe there! Even though it was a long shot, considering that putting poisonous plants in a place where people eat is a big "no-no", I wanted to imagine that a Christmas miracle would happen and mistletoes would appear everywhere in the hall that day, making Rod fall into a situation where we "accidentally" would stop under one of them.

What if the snow falling outside naturally provided a romantic atmosphere between us? What if someone suggested a dance and Rod choose me as a partner, considering that, at least within the continent, I was the person closest to him? Oh, God! So many possibilities!

Man, I wouldn't miss that Christmas's for anything in the world.

* * *

When the human race will learn that the greater the amount of detail put in their expectations for an occasion, the most extensive will be the list of possible incidents that would make things not going on the right way?

Yeah. My Christmas's didn't go exactly as planned.

The problems started even before the party. You know how it is. Religious celebration in the United States. I had to endure more comments than usual of clients who did not want "to be served by people of my type," unbelievable inconvenient and intrusive questions of stuff that weren't any of their business such as "But how sex works for you?" and "But are you operated?" and complaints with Lizzy that I was, I shit you not, "ruining the birthday of Jesus" by being there. Blah blah blah. It did not help me at all the fact that I was quite distracted on that day, thinking about all I had plotted for the night, which made me drop a chocolate cake on the skirt of a client and break a few glasses I was taking to the kitchen, so even those who had not noticed or had not cared about the details concerning my gender had their reasons to complain with me.

Completed the work hours, I thought, "Finally!" and I assumed that would be the end of my annoyances that night.

Do you hear that? That's the sound of bad background laugh.

Oh, poor old me. 'The end'? AS IF!

Okay, let's start talking about my problems to get ready to the party.

I had everything I needed. I had brought a glorious dress I borrowed from Bonnefoy lady, a hairbrush, perfume, and all my makeup kits. I would be totally ready to make shit happen if not for a little, important detail that I forgot…

Other women wanted to use the bathroom.

Fuck. I hated going to the bathroom when other women were there. I didn't feel welcome and I got very nervous about the suspicious reactions that I caused just by being there. Seriously, no one deserves to feel apprehensive to the point of feeling like you're going to puke just for using a damn bathroom. I only wanted to change my clothes, not make a striptease show and invade all cabins to give lap dances to every woman who was there! We could _perfectly _use the same bathroom without seeing each other. Come on!

One of the advantages of always arriving early at work was being able to go to the ladies room and change my clothes there alone. It was so frustrating to see that crowd of ladies moving and knowing that I would probably have to wait for all them to finish dressing. This could take CENTURIES.

Maybe I should just go.

Those people knew me. They shouldn't be fighting with me just because of my entrance to the bathroom that was clearly designed to my gender. I tried to convince myself of this.

But…. What if they looked at me strangely? What… What if they started a heated discussion in the middle of Christmas that would leave everybody in a bad mood just because of me? What if everyone got too embarrassed to say anything about my presence and I made everyone uneasy even if I didn't heard any complaints about it?

Maybe it would be better for me to wait.

How long could it take to every female employer to dress up? One hour? It was not that long. It was not something that couldn't be endured and that would avoid possible delicate situations.

…

On the other hand… What if Rod decided to leave early and I ended up being forced to see that I lost my chance thanks to my decision to wait? Also, what if my behavior reinforced a bad conduct of my co-workers? Shouldn't they be over this unnecessary drama already? Why was I who had to be worried in causing discomfort instead of they being worried to learn how to behave like proper human beings?

Unexpectedly, my savior was Lizzy.

When I was sitting at a table, facing the bathroom and pondering my options, she suddenly came out in one leap, rushing to where I was and asking me with some urgency:

"Julchen! Julchen! You brought your makeup kits, right?"

Hm... Yeah, I had brought it. Why?

"Please, please! Could you come to the bathroom with me and help me do my makeup? Your makeup is always on point! I can see that you are excellent in these things! I borrowed my mother's makeup but I have no idea of what to do with it. I'm bad at it and I'm almost crying out of rage... or, well, maybe this is just because my eye is irritated by the amount of times I jabbed with mascara but, anyway, I need your help! Pretty please?".

I couldn't refuse an request so desperate. Especially when it was accompanied with its convenient line "Could you come to the bathroom with me?". Thanks, Lizzy, for being terrible at applying makeup and looking just like a clown of a haunted circus after your attempt to do it at your own, thus allowing a girl like me to have an excuse to get into the bathroom without causing controversy.

Everyone could agree that Lizzy's case was an emergency and reverence my selfless spirit, understanding why I was there. In extreme situations, you can't bother with insignificant details 'cause priorities and Lizzy's situation was surely an extreme one.

Once in the bathroom, sitting with Lizzy in front of a bank to the other, I confessed when the momentary attention on us has been terminated:

"Lizzy, to be frank, I'm not good at applying makeup on other's people faces. I usually only put it on myself. I can try but don't blame me for the results later, right?"

"HOLD ON A SECOND! Are you being _modest_?! You?! Julchen Beilschmidt?! Being modest?!"

I rolled my eyes in bitterness, understanding subliminal mocking on those words.

"Yeah, I got it, I got it. I'm proud as fuck. Now could you to stop with the jokes? I need to concentrate." I squeezed my eyes and furrowed my brow, attentive to every detail of Lizzy's face. Right. I could handle that. I had enough potential to rule the world and I would do a makeup that would leave everyone on that bathroom speechless.

...

...

In my defense, she wasn't looking like the ghost of a killer clown anymore. She was just looking like, let's say, a mixture between a stereotypical pharaoh of Hollywood movies, a brothel dancer from twenties and a look that most likely belonged to of Ebony Dementia Raven on _My Immortal_... She looked very… Very… Hm, "unique". Besides, following the plan, every lady on that bathroom got speechless with Eliza's look, even if not in the way I imagined originally.

"__Julchen_!_"

"I FUCKING TOLD YOU!"

Lizzy asked help from other women and I had to help her about it, considering that I was the one responsible for her condition. The first whom I asked for help was Mona but she argued that she had the philosophy "A lipstick is enough". I tried to talk to other co-workers with whom I got along but they were all so rushed and focused on their appearance, they had no time for poor Lizzy.

Finally, another waitress, a middle-aged lady with whom I usually didn't talk because we didn't get along that much, decided to intervene. She had three daughters and plenty of experience in helping them to get dressed and she offered her abilities to rescue Eliza.

See? What I did say about emergencies making people united?

As she did Lizzy's makeup fast like a train, Michelle, another waitress with whom I didn't talk to that much and who was watching with interest the development of that drama while making a hairstyle with her silky, long black hair, finally asked me "_Why don't you go dress yourself since you are already here, Julchen?_" as if there were no big deal about it.

I felt so relieved. It was like fireworks exploded inside me at the moment she said those words.

I went to the bathroom stall and changed. The black dress of Mrs. Bonnefoy was wide and it was a model with layers of veils that did not give much emphasis on curves, which worked very well for me. Since I had started transition not that long ago, my body was just beginning to gain the contours I wanted. It would take some time so I could brag of the proportions of my hips and waist with absolute confidence in myself. Meanwhile, that straight cut, in my point of view, fit me best. The neckline of the dress was closed and I could put the filling in my bra with nothing to fear about because it was well accommodated in my chest area. Since I was 175 cm tall, five less than Rod, heels were absolutely dispensable. I slipped on a pair of low-heeled sandals that were covered by the length of my dress. Another contribution of the various veil layers would be the fact that it made the mold of the dress loose from the waist down, preventing that an annoying detail messed up my flawless look.

Completed these procedures, I pulled out my makeup with a proper remover, cleaning it carefully. The makeup was the most important part of my appearance. I've never been one to care about clothes. In spite of everything that happened in my life, my style had not changed much. Especially in a casual context. Dark colors and comfortable fabrics were enough for me. Also, I liked the color, volume and texture of my hair and if it just remained long and well brushed, I would be more than happy with it.

In the case of makeup, however, I was extremely careful. Certain features and proportions I wanted to give to my face were much more easily highlighted by makeup and I always used to present to the world the appearance that I wanted them to see and that made me feel good about myself. At first, I was very bad at dealing with them. Fortunately, practice and several videos from youtube helped me and now I could make a full production in 10 minutes.

When I came out of the bathroom, Lizy, now with a neutral and natural makeup, looked right in my face and concluded with a resentful and quite sour expression:

"You _little fucker_! How you can make a flawless makeup in yourself and that disaster on me?!"

That was a compliment in a way so I just laughed, reinforced once again that she had been warned, and invited her to go with me to see where Rod was.

"No, I still need to fix my hair. You can go ahead. You probably want to spend some time alone with him, right?"

I was so, so shocked at these words that my gut reaction was to give a loud laugh and let out a rampant train of words, moving my eyes constantly side to side:

"It's not like being alone with him or not would make that much of a difference to me! I was only thinking of attenuating that nerd's loneliness, you know? Not in a romantic sense or something! Ah, not that I'm saying Rod is totally out of consideration in this regard but ...!"

It was at that moment that ½ of women in that bathroom looked at me as if to say, "This talk doesn't fool anyone, dear." and the other half looked at me as if wondering why the hell I was acting so strangely at hearing such a simple question.

Urghh.

The only way to protect my honor would be to get Rod to take a romantic initiative on that very night to make it clear that, sure, I may had romantic feelings for that aristocrat, but he eagerly returned them and was even more desperate for me than I was for him. He was just being discreet about it ...! Most likely. Temporarily.

* * *

As I said, I expect to get out of that bathroom living a scene in Hollywood style, where Rod and I would be mutually amazed at the change in our appearance and too dazzled to put our feelings in eloquent words. That was not quite what happened, though.

Upon leaving the bathroom, I saw Rod on the piano and when our eyes met, I waved to him.

It was then that I noticed ...Tidy Rod was not so different from daily Rod.

I mean, this was not necessarily a bad thing, right? A guy who is always dressed as if ready for a special occasion, technically, is a catch, isn't? It's just… I was just a tiny little bit frustrated because… I dunno. It was a SPECIAL occasion. I was expecting a "_Ohhhhhhhhhhhh._" effect. Instead, all I got was an "_Oh._" effect.

Apparently, he thought the same of me. Regrettably, his face didn't suffer even a momentary change when he saw me. The emotion on Rod's traits were subtle, however still detectable to a careful observer and believe me. I was the most attentive observer of the entire solar system on that moment. He didn't write a 'Wow. You look ... You look great.' but rather a "_Come over here and sit. Before you ask, yes, you can order any song, except for Christmas's carols. I can't stand playing all those annoying songs anymore._".

Balls. That's an anti-climax for you.

Disguising my annoyance, I accepted his invitation and sat down beside him, expecting to enjoy the charming atmosphere of Christmas and our closeness to break that distraction bubble around him and make him notice how stunning I was.

I underestimated how fucking dense the guy I liked was.

Hours and hours passed and we got that entire period discussing all possible issues, except romance. Not for lack of trying on my part. I couldn't be blamed for it. Somehow, that guy had the ability to convert all possible topics on issues of academic debates.

"**Soooo it's Christmas's and we're both single. Isn't that a shame, young lord?**". "_Not really. Western values don't dictate Christmas as a necessarily romantic occasion. It is usually associated with family and spiritual relationships._".

"**Hypothetically, if you were to end up under a mistletoe with a girl, what would be your reaction?**". "_I'd be standing or sitting?_". "**I don't know. Standing?**". "_I would look for a place to sit._". "**And if you were sitting?**". "_How would I simply end up under a mistletoe while sitting? In that case, wouldn't be the mistletoe that would have to come to me? If a supernatural phenomenon as this happened, my main concern would be probably to call an exorcist_. ". "**Good logic, I must admit.**".

**"****What is your wish for this Christmas****?"**. " _A better __u__nderstanding of the enigmatic style of Maurice Ravel._". "**Don't you have any desire related to a special someone?**". "_Despite the odds, Ravel can be considered someone special for me. In this light, my answer would be yes."_.

Urghhhhh! I did my best! I really did!

It came a point where I surrendered and just tried to just enjoy my time with Rod like the usual. We argued about literature, about the problem of elitism in the accessibility to art (where we held quite different opinions), shared personal stories and made discreet jokes with a Christmas theme, wondering who would be Mr. Scrooge (he did not accept my vote when I said that HE would totally be the Mr. Scrooge of that place) and who would be the three Christmas ghosts among our co-workers.

He tried to teach me to play a tune on the piano and, well, I think I did a good job, despite young lord's claims that I was not placing my fingers in the right way, that I wasn't synchronizing my movements and that he could practically hear the sound of the wrong note seeing my fingers like that and blah, blah, blah. Well, I tried to teach him to draw the head of a hummingbird and he made a draft of an alien creature which he said was a hummingbird to the avant-garde style, so I think we were quits regarding our disputes. We both were equally terrible in artistic activities outside our area of expertise.

Oh, and I showed him an app on my phone where you could answer questions on various topics and to sum up the story, as he used my account to play in the category "Operas", my name is now listed in first national place of opera experts using this app.

At midnight, when I got up to go home, my overall analysis of the evening was that it was very fun. Not perfect or hyper-romantic as I had envisioned, but you know what? I had the chance to stay chatting for hours with the guy I liked on various topics that were really cool, I was on top of the national opera experts list on my phone app, which would still make me laugh at Rod's furious face for months, and although there wasn't any romantic advances with him, at least I managed to get tangible evidence that I would never have to worry about possible rivals. I could hear the guy I liked playing the piano extremely well and he was acceptingall my requests for musics within his knowledge. We also did some entertaining activities like a game of "_Guess which is the film by the drawing I'm doing,_" which Rod won very unfairly.

Looking at all these elements in my evaluation of that night, my smile was sincere when I said goodbye Rod with the following note:

"**I have to go now, Rod. I can't go home very** **late.**"

When he picked up his phone, I thought he would just send me a "_See you soon._" so I found strange that he had taken some time to type something so short.

"_Oh, alright then, but__may I solve one last unfinished issue with you first?_"

That was the message that he sent me. I was not expecting it but I would not complain about it.

"**Oh, sure. Go ahead.**"

I had no idea that this "last unfinished issue" meant, but...

Anyway, he put the notebook and his phone on the piano, gave a brief and little more serious than usual glance towards me, released a flood of air through the mouth, shook his head sideways, closed his eyes, gathered concentration and suddenly leaned to press his lips against mine.

I'm not joking.

I swear I'm not kidding.

No need to say, I was so shocked that after he finished and got away from me, I spent about five minutes in a stunned silence, blinking incessantly. I did not even have the ability to ask why he had done it since I was still processing the reality of that moment.

What.

What. What. _What_.

Was I going crazy? My frustration with the lack of romantic interactions between us finally reached a point in which my brain started to produce self-induging illusions?

He picked up his phone again. He was typing something when gave up halfway and erased everything. He typed again and again he gave up. Finally, he let out a grunt, picked up the notebook instead and wrote on a blank sheet:

"_I would like to inform you that the feelings I have for you belong to a romantic nature. That doesn't make me blind to your faults, of course. I'm perfectly aware that you enjoy teasing me and sometimes act quite childish. However, I accept them as part of who you are and cherish them as traits that make the person that you're. After a lengthy and thoughtful balance of my emotions, I came to the conclusion that it would be good for both parties if we could engage in a relationship compatible with my romantic expectations about you._"

Wow… Just WOW.

This was the most formal and rational love confession of history and there's no words to describe how _happy _I was with it.

I can hardly describe my jubilation. I was jumping of hapiness inside.

Oh, dear. That whole confession was so…'Rod'.

For reals. I was head over wheels for that aristocrat.

Even that supposedly cold and calculated love confession was very charming in my eyes. I found a great inner satisfaction in observing Rod's face while he was embarrassed and apparently a bit unhappy with himself for not being able to hide his embarrassment.

I don't know how to explain it but if he had confessed in a more "normal" manner, maybe I wouldn't feel as happy as I was at that moment. That love confession was just like him. Thanks to it, instead of entering in a tense and confusing scene in which I would wonder how I should act from now on, if that was real, if our friendship was at risk or not… I was too busy almost dying of laughing.

I laughed for multiple reasons. It came from a mix of shock with happiness and fun because, let's face it, the romantic side of that young lord was extremely funny. It was good to see that he was still Rod even when he was being seductive. His eccentric personality was one of the things on him that had attracted me so much in the first place.

"_I would like to inform you that the feelings that I have for you belong to a romantic nature._ ". " _It would be good for both parties if we could engage in a relationship compatible with my romantic expectations about you ~_". Pffffff! Oh, Rod! That guy! He was really something!

Since the young lord was waiting for a response and didn't seem very happy with the acess of laugher that followed his confession, I decided to clarify my feelings on that topic and pulled the collar of his fancy shirt, bringing him closer to me. Then, returning the favor he had done a few minutes ago, I pressed our lips together, almost knocking him of the bench where he was sitting with my enthusiasm.

When I pulled away from him, I purposely took advantage of the time he consumed blinking in bewilderment, in a very similar way to that I did when receiving the news of him a few minutes ago, to write in huge letters:

"**I also like you a lot, young lord.**" – I wrote with a teasing half-smile, putting his words in more direct terms. He rolled his eyes and gave me a vaguely disapproving look but considering the fact that he put his arm around my shoulders and got a little more closer to me, I thiiiink he was pretty pleased with this turn of events.

Thus, contrary to what one would expect of our antagonism of personalities, we started to date. Now that I think about it, probably we also contradicted various statistics, given that we were a couple totally outside the predictable line.

That's what made it so much fun! Ha, ha!

* * *

When visiting my doctor for a routine checkup, I reported some strange things that were happening to my body lately and he recommended me some vitamins and certain additions to my diet, but was keen to point out that it was possible that we changed my medicine regime.

I was in treatment for a year and a half. It was no shock to know that I would have to change again my medication… I was already used to the process. However, that event reminded me that sooner or later I would need to tell Rod about the details he didn't know about me.

It was not like I was lying to him. I never claimed to be a cis person and I was being more than honest identifying myself as a girl. Still, I had never explicitly commented on my specific conditions to him and that would have to be discussed at some point, since he was my freaking boyfriend and needed to be included in more aspects of my life. Given that I was always using my make-up on point, large clothes and a very flattering bra, I could sometimes pass as a cis on that moment of my life and he might not have noticed about me on his own. Especially considering that he was not able to hear my voice that was usually my biggest delator since I started transition.

We were dating for almost a month. He would have to know and not by rumors or speculation. We had already seen at earlier stages of our relationship that making a judgment of someone, relying solely on rumors and assumptions can lead to large errors and quotes from F. Scott Fitzgerald.

I should be the one to talk to him about my body and my gender and explain it in detail to make sure he would have no doubts about my fears and my reason to be talking about it with him.

I knew I would have to talk with him soon. This was an established decision in my mind. Now, how to _star__t _that conversation with him… That was a different matter. One that made me very apprehensive, to be honest. Prior to my conversation with Rod, there was a huge, almost unbearable, moment ofsuspense in my life.

I searched for different opinions on the subject.

According to Francis, "_Love overcomes all the odds! Go ahead and be honest with your beloved!" _– Yeaaaah… He came up with this talk again. I suspect he would give me the same advice if I asked him which cereal should I buy or which characters I should save on the first game of _The Walking Dead_.

His Canadian girlfriend, who was still around, said "_I_…_I__think you can still be friends if you're honest with him, right?_", leaving a subtle implication that Rod would probably dump me but the sooner I told him "the truth", the biggest were the chances we would still be friends. That was a pretty shitty opinion and assumption, actually, but at the time, I thought it seemed like a real and huge possibility.

According to Francis's parents, "_Why do you even__need to tell him? Let him find out when the time comes. Most marriages work just like that. Make the most while your partner doesn't know much about you to get a hold on them because the image your partner has of you tends to fall apart over time in all relationships._".

It was like playing a dating simulation game with three crucial options in the final choice and no walkthrough to help me get what I wanted.

Then, one day, just before going to work, when I was stressed out again with this subject, I just got really tired of getting stuck in that dilemma and decided that it had to end there. I was even starting to get unmotivated to go to my job and thinking of not going there! That inner debate went way too far and started to seriously hurt my heart – and possibly my pocket (since my work place discounted payments of absences without justification). I had to figure that out already.

So I threw my concerns and my hands to the air with a "To hell with it!" attitude, deciding that even without knowing exactly what I would say and much less _how_ to say it, I would talk with Rod about what was bothering me. On that same day. Expressing my feelings according to what came to my mind at the time.

With this decision on mind, during work, I told my boyfriend I had something important to tell him after work and, at the end of our shifts, I went with him to the taxi he always took to go back and we arrived together in his house. There, I asked to go to the kitchen to make a drink for both of us and he patiently agreed so I prepared a cappuccino before returning to the living room where he was waiting for me.

Rod was on a couch with three seats, sitting right in the middle. In turn, I decided to sit in a single seat, which was left next to the sofa, where I set uncomfortably.

That was far from being my first visit to Rod's house. My problem with this one wasn't the awkward feeling of being in a strange place which visitors usually have in their first trips to someone's home. In fact, the calm and privacy of Rod's house – that looked a bit like the home of a pampering grandmother with all that old, traditional décor – were actually convenient for my purposes and not one bit intimidating. I wasn't uncomfortable with the space where we were but with myself.

I was restless and could not settle down in a fixed position. I moved my body from side to side, crossed and uncrossed my legs, changed the position of my arms.

Meanwhile, Rod was just sipping his cappuccino patiently, focusing on enjoying his drink, waiting for me to get the courage to speak by my own.

He didn't demand anything from me. He was not the kind of guy who liked to go after what people didn't want to show. I gathered determination to open up to him in my own time and I was extremely grateful for that because I don't think I could handle more pressure.

Then I said.

I said I was a trans girl. I said that I had been kicked out of my parents' house and was living with the Bonnefoy family because of that. I explained that the main reason I started that job was to help paying my hormonal treatment. I informed him that I had not done the surgery and was not quite sure that I would someday, even if I had financial resources to do so in the future. I had to say that if one day we were to do what I call "one of the ninety fun activities to do on a bed" one day, Rod would have to accept the fact that my body wasn't like a cis girl body even with the hormones… That was just a fact. Some trans girls develop breasts and hips without even needing hormones and others get them pretty easily once they start their transition but I wasn't one of them. I had small breasts, small hips and, yes, my, now reduced but still there, penis.

I was very shaken at the time. Putting those words out of me was almost unbearable. These were things I didn't want to remember. These were problems that I didn't want to face. I would be much happier if Rod could just see me as a girl without a 'but' in his mind, you know? Also, speaking about that in that blunty way, made me have some rather nauseating memories of the day I came out to my parents and, boy, that day went bad.

I hated the portion of my body which I couldn't get ridden of and I especially hated how much that affected how the world saw me.

My awesomeness beyond the human reach aside, I was just a normal girl. I liked to draw birds when I was bored, I had an avid interest in History and enjoyed survival games a lot. I was into classic rock songs and I was considering the possibility of getting a cool tattoo in the future, maybe on my shoulder. I secretly enjoyed watching romantic comedies with Meg Ryan in my computer while eating a whole pot of ice cream alone. I had my life, my plans, my fears and dreams. I was a complex human being and a girl.

So why that one feature, out of my control, determined to the world who I was? What the hell. That was so unfair. Seriously, man. It's just the fucking chromosome Y.

I guess Rod noticed I was shaking and unable to keep talking because he interrupted my narrative, sending me a message via phone.

"_You were honest with me. In return, I will be completely honest with you._"

Oh no. We all know that a 'Can I be honest with you?' is never the harbinger of positive news. I felt my stomach freeze instantly.

"**Yes?**" - I took some time to type this short answer. My fingers kept hitting the wrong keys.

"_Julchen, I couldn't care less about your reproductive organs. I feel romantic attraction to girls and you're a girl._"

When I saw that message, it was as if a caramelized, warm wave of relief covered my body completely. "_You're a girl_"… The simple, frank and straightforward way he put it was the best thing in the world. There wasn't a "but" in the mind of Rod, although he was properly informed about my conditions. Rod legitimately saw me as the girl I was and he loved me just like that. There were thousands of sentences he could have given as answer and that was definitely the ideal for me. He didn't care about my reproductive organs, since they didn't remotely influenced the perception he had of me as a girl.

Ahh. I pretty much fell in love with Rod again.

I was so happy that I forgot that I should write so he could understand me and I opened my mouth in a huge smile, saying before even thinking of any coherent response:

"Rod..."

My phone vibrated and thinking he could be sending me another cute message like that, I got excited and checked it out on a sec.

_"_ _Wait. I wasn't clear enough. I really see you as a girl but when I said that I really couldn't care less about your reproductive organs, I really meant it. No matter what they are, I have no interest in them."_

… da fuck? That was not quite matching with the meaning that I had attributed to his speech.

My previous thought was "He wants me and every part of my body! Yay!" Now it seemed like what he was saying was that he liked me but, no matter what my sexual organs were, he WASN'T interested on them.

What the fuck?

"**What do you mean by that?**"

"_I don't feel sexual attraction and I don't have any interest in coming to have sexual intercourse__with another person, regardless of gender."_

_"_**?**_" – _That's what I sent to him because sometimes, you just have no words.

_"I guess that just as there are some people who do not really care about the sex of their partners because they would want them anyway, there are people who don't really care about the sex of their partners because they ___wouldn't ___want them anyway ."_

If I had seen Rudolph, the red nose reindeer, running around the room in a Christmas sleigh, it wouldn't surprise me that much at that point. I felt like a portrait that had been rotated 90 degrees.

He… he didn't want SEX? Like, who doesn't want **sex**? I have never heard of someone who was averse to the idea. I mean, he was a guy in his early twenties! He must have been **desperate **for sex..What did that mean? He had bad past experiences? Some trauma?

"**I'm confused… What do you mean by that?**"

"_What I mean is very__simple. I have no problems with your sex since your gender is still the same. I'm glad you trusted on me and I hope to support you the most I can. Just don't expect huge amounts of money being borrowed from me._"

Certain things never change.

"**ROD, YOU PETTY BASTARD."**

"_Each person with their limitations. As I said, as far as I'm concerned,__I am quite comfortable with the prospect of maintaining our relationship. However, since we're having a talk about this, I have to inform you that you need to accept the fact that I don't want and I never will engage in lewd activities with you._"

Was this really not about me?

**"****What if I did the surgery?**" – I just wanted to check it out.

"_No._"

"**What if we stay together for several years and you really fall in love with me?**" – I had to be sure.

"_I already have such feelings for you, you fool. The answer is still no._"

I lowered my cell phone and, with arms dropping in defeat, I stared agape at the young lord, processing the implications of what he had told me.

The way he was putting it almost sounded like not wanting sex was his sexual orientation. I knew there were people who liked exclusively of one sex and people who enjoyed more than one but apparently there was a neutral type that didn't like any? This was completely new to me. I had never stopped to think about that possibility.

If that was his orientation, that wasn't a problem we could, I dunno, work together and solve. If that was his sexual orientation, there was an incompatibility between us I didn't know before. He accepted me the way I was but… he just was not interested in me that way.

I never thought I would have to choose between Rod and sex and I really didn't know how to react to that.

Hey!

Don't blame me for that!

I was a young adult and that decision would have certain impact in my life. Like Rod said…

"_If you want to stay with me, you will have to accept a future completely devoid of such activities._"

I was speechless. I really was. I tried to scribble an answer and ended up giving up along the way and erasing my text multiple times. I couldn't make a decision while in that state of shock. My thoughts weren't in the right order. My mind was in a blank state. How could I make a choice when I had not even fully processed what the hell had happened? Crap.

I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what to say. It was not even a matter of having an idea of what I wanted and not finding the words to say it. I legitimately had no idea what should be my next move because my goddamn head was like a television off the air.

Finally, I asked for time to think about it and Rod readily accepted it. He took me to the door and we parted with nods at a certain distance from each other. It was a tense parting, that felt pretty weird.

After returning home, I saw the Bonnefoys waiting for me in the living room. They were all eager for news. They were ready to celebrate or to comfort me depending of which were the results of my dialogue with Rod. Unfortunately, my behavior was nothing like they've been preparing to deal with and they couldn't do much to improve my mood. I wasn't super excited and upbeat, about to dance to the sounds of Celebration by Kool and The Gang, nor was sad and needing to hear a playlist on 8tracks for relationship breakups.

I was pensive and quiet. Concentrated in my thoughts.

There was a lot I needed to analyze.

Should I stay with the Rod?

Unlike him, I was a very sexual girl. I enjoyed sex as a total bottom, had certain expectations about my sex life and some fantasies that I would love to experience in practice. For more than once, I entertained myself with the thought of how it would be sex with my nerd boyfriend. I would probably have to take viagra first to stimulate me a bit, considering that my prostate and my penis were atrophied. We would also need lubricant. Loads of lubricant. Would the aristocrat know how to prepare me? Probably not. Well, I could make him watch. It would be exciting. What kind of position he would prefer? Missionary? Maybe I could ride on him and…?

Anyway, as I said, my first impression of Rod was "**This guy looks kinda hot". **I didn't have a 10000% pure perception of my boyfriend.

And now, I would have to resign myself to the idea that I could never realize any of those fantasies with him.

… I had a lot to consider.

At first, my logic was that as Rod had accepted a portion of mine, I _had_ to accept a portion of him. 'Equivalent exchange' like they say on that one anime. You know which one.

However, on a second thought on the subject, I concluded that no, this was not the right way to deal with it.

It would be unfair to Rod and would be unfair to me if my relationship with him consisted in a "I will submit myself to it, although it is difficult for me to be happy in this kind of relationship, just because he accepted a important part of me.". That would be as if staying with Rod was a noble sacrifice on my part. That would be kinda fucked up.

Also, let's not forget, it wouldn't be fair of me to decide to be with the young lord simply because he was cool about my gender. That was a positive trait of him as a decent human being, not something related to our love life directly. I couldn't let my decision be based on that.

In the end of the day, I guess the main question was… Could I really enjoy having Rod as my boyfriend?

Would I be able to be genuinely happy with Rod in a relationship without sex?

…

Seven years later, I received the same question while eating my wedding cake, sitting on a couch a bit back from the party, next to my husband.

I received this question from Rod himself who was next to me, sending messages to my phone with one hand and using the other to take part of the confetti that was spread on the voluminous skirt of my white dress.

"**Are you asking me this now? When we already got married? Oh! How perfidious and cunning of you, young lord!**" – I teased with a huge smirk, putting a hand over my chest as if mortified by his evil plans.

"_Please don't joke about it, you dummy. I'm being serious._" – He said with a disapproving look.

"**I'm genuinely happy, Rod. Trust me. My spirit is very noble, indeed, but not to the point of dating seven years with a guy and marrying him just to play the complacent martyr and win the 'Decent human being of the year' award. Come on, Rod.**"

He stared at me blankly for a while before taking his mobile phone to send me another message. After writing and erasing many times his text, he sent it to me with lowered eyes that refused to meet with my:

"_I still worry about it. After all, you would like to have what I ___can't___offer you, correct?_"

Oh, Rod. That question was so old and overcome.

Since a long, long time ago, I came to the conclusion that there were many other fun things we could do together besides sex. After all, there were couples with a bad sex life and less compatibility than us who could get along well with each other, so a life without sex with Rod was hardly a sacrifice. The young lord was the kind of partner that never lets you bored. It had been soooooo long since I had worked my perception to stop noticing Rod's sexy side so much and be more attentive on how lovely, charming and handsome he was. At present, I could look at it and think "Wow, my boyfriend is pretty much a super-model! We are probably the most attractive couple in this place." or "His face when he's embarrassed is the cutest in the world!" genuinely admiring his appearance without associating it with something sexual.

There was a lot more appealing elements in his appearance and personality than that whole sensual stuff. If my nineteen old self had been able to come to that conclusion, imagine my twenty-six years old self who has dated that nerd for so long! Rod was the one that, by never staying in the same position that I did, occasionally fell on this uncertainty that I had already overcome.

**"****Okay, but you know what else I** **would like to have? Jean Grey's sick as hell powers of levitation. Do you see me suffering by not having them? Nope! Same situation, same situation.**"

_"__Do__n't__ compare the two situations, Julchen._"

"**You are right. It is an unfair comparison because, sorry for saying this, Rod, but I doubt that sex with any guy, including you, could be betterthan having Jean Grey's powers. Don't you remember the first scene of the third X-Men movie? Magneto was impressed at her powers! THE Magneto, dude!**"

"_Wait a bit. Magneto was that guy with the ridiculous hat, right?_"

"**That's a nice way to describe the character, Rod.**" – I laughed, shaking my head sideways.

"_It's the most accurate and concise way, I believe._" – He argued.

"**Young lord, doing sexual stuff with you would be loads of fun, I won't deny, but you know… Skiing with you is also quite fun. Talking about art with you is superfun. Watching classic movies with you is fun. What would be my point of calling sex 'one of ninety fun activities to do in a bed' if there weren't eighty nine options besides that? I won't suffer because I can't have one. We do many funny things** **together and I'm never bored when I'm with you. Moreover, I have found that I can satisfy myself very well. I have my toys, my signature on pornhub and stuff like that to help me with it. **"

"_TMI, Julchen."_

My face broke into a giant and bright smile.

"**Look at my aristocratic husband, using slangs! I'm so proud of my influence on you!**" – I gave light punch on his shoulder, fondly.

"_Your ease at feeling proud of yourself is extraordinary."_ – Despite his serious-looking appearance, I could see the hint of enjoyment and teasing that this line had.

"**HAHA! TOO LATE FOR REGRETS, ARISTOCRAT. THIS PROUD PERSON IS NOW A PROUD MRS. BEILSCHMIDT-ELDESTEIN.**" – I rubbed this information all over his face, wearing the smile of a triumphant villain.

Man, I would never get tired of that last name or about the fact that I was now the wife of the young lord. I had so many jokes about that just waiting for different moments on our life. Every time he would say something about my "childish and flashy" behavior, I would make a point of emphasizing that he had MARRIED this girl of childish and flashy behavior. MUAHUAHUAHUAHUA.

I teased him, figuring that I would receive a retort from him and I was ready and willing to strike back. As I said a few pages ago, the best relationships are born of a mutual freedom to tease each other and joke around and, even though we knew each other for years, this still was very applicable to my relationship with the aristocrat. I still enjoyed teasing him a lot and I suspect that I shall enjoy it even when I'm an old lady.

However, instead of the sarcastic and grumpy remark that I was expecting, what Rod informed me with a rare soft smile that caught me by surprise was:

"_I don't have regrets about it. Not a single one._"

That wasn't a fun to rebut comment or something that made me laugh, however he left me absolutely elated with those words.

Oh dear. I couldn't believe that huge dork was my husband. I could barely contain the extent of my smile. I felt the corners of my mouth hurting with how large was my smile at that moment.

Rod and his ways of making love confessions. They were so subtle, so honest and so like him. Nobody in the world could copy them. I loved every one of them in all its discretion and uniqueness and loved my ability to translate them thanks to our friendship, our mutual openness with each other and to my attention with those discrete changes in the tone of his written words or his features that were so dear to me.

Not resisting the urge caused by the impact of that wave of affection for my husband, I pulled him by his suit and applied my lips hard against his, nearly knocking him off the couch and almost being brought together to the floor, thanks to the arms he put around my waist to support himself.

Refusing to get up and get away from him, I just pulled away a little when we finished kissing and I laughed. I fumbled in search of my cell phone by the couch. When I found it, I wrote (putting some exaggerated emojis just to mess up with him a bit):

"**I love you too, young lord." **– I answered with a smirk, putting his words in more direct terms. He rolled his eyes and gave me a vaguely disapproving look.

Still, considering the hint of a smile I saw on his face, before he closed his eyes and brought me close again to kiss me calmly and deeply, holding me in his arms(probably while resisting to his urge of cleaning the points of my dress where there was confetti), the fact that we were together since seven years ago and we still acted like two silly young lovers, considering the golden ring and black ink stains that were in my hand, I think we were both perfectly content with the way things worked for us.

* * *

A/N: __Hello! I rarely appear here at the end notes but I have some important things to say about this work!__

__First, just because I feel that I can't be clear enough about it, I wasn't trying to say that the only way of a hetero person dating a not-opperated trans person is if they don't have sex. This only one of the many ways of a relationship between a cis hetero guy and a trans girl working. I'm making a point of empathizing that because I would be pretty sad to discover that someone reached this awful, awful conclusion about this happy and cute fluffy that I made based on some personal experiences.__

__This is a story about mutual acceptance and love and this is also a story related to me on a personal level because it was inspired by my OWN thoughts about MY sexual orientation. For those who don't know, I'm a hetero-romantic sex repulsed ace and I recently came to the conclusion that I would be okay with cis and trans boys, if they are okay with the fact that I really don't want to have sex with them. This might sound like a very delayed conclusion but as a hetero-romantic ace, I'm still figuring out stuff(because it's weird be hetero but not like the other heteros). I only recently came to the conclusion that I wouldn't have the " I'm attracted to you as a person but not in a sexual way because of your biological sex. Should I stay with you? " issue that people talk about when discussing about straight or gay people dating trans people – bis and pans aren't a part of this discussion, in my knowledge, for obvious reasons . In my case, I have the problem of " I'm attracted to you as a person but not in a sexual way. ". Period. No matter if you're trans or cis. As a hetero-romantic, I'm still confused about some stuff but that was a nice discovery about my preferences because I never really thought about this before. I'm still young(I'm 21) so I'm still figuring out stuff and, to be honest, I only thought about this subject after reading a discussion about it on tumblr because I never thought about the fact that sexual attraction works in very different ways to sexual people and that there's heteros (I'm also counting heterosexuals here, not only hetero-romantics!) who also feel attraction to a trans person of the opposite gender like they feel for a cis person of the same gender and there's heteros who don't. Again, that sounds like a delayed conclusion but I just don't know. Sex in all the ways isn't attractive to me at all. My answer to every sexual dillema I read about is just "So don't have sex!" and that doesn't works to everybody.=_=__

__By the way, now I have a better opinion formed about trans people dating hetero and gay people, thanks ____to this awesome video(___ watch?v=cwmUipFt3E0)___ by Kat Blaque, a black trans woman who speaks a lot about trans issues and educated me in a lot of ways since I wrote this fic. Sexual attraction is really confusing to me but I think now I understand a little better about this issue. By the way, I'm visiting vlogs and youtube channels from trans people with nice opinions and sense of humour to get even more educated because as I said, I'm really aware that I can't fully understand the experiences of a trans person so the best thing I can do it's to listen to them. - If you know a interesting one, please send me the link, btw! I would love to discover other cool channels !__

__I'm aware that as a cis person I can't understand the struggles of trans people. In this aspect, I'm a privileged position and I'm 1000% willing to be educated in this subject so I'm truly sorry if I ended up being offensive in some way, even though that really wasn't my intention. That said, this isn't a story about being trans and it's not a story about being a hetero-romantic sex repulsed ace or even a story about having disabilities. This is a story about Julchen and Rod and their feelings for each other. To write this story, I choose to perceive Julchen as a girl who happens to be trans and not as a trans girl who happens to have tastes and feelings not related to the fact she's trans. I dunno if I'm being clear but yeah, that was the perspective I had on mind. Because, I guess, that's just like life usually is. The fact I'm a aspie is an important part in my life and heavily influences my perception of the world and give me loads of challenges but this isn't all that I am. Same about being an ace. Same about being a latina. It's the fact that I'm a aspie and a latina and a hetero-romantic ace and a huge nerd who cries about fictional nerds and who loves the ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) emo ji that makes me who I am.__

__That's why you don't see me fully commenting about Julchen's transition in explicit lines until a certain point of the story though it's quickly mentioned and suggested in some parts. An old Brazilian reader of mine said that I could make the plot-twist more surprising if I did this or that but… I wasn't really intending to create a plot-twist, actually. In the moment that it becomes important to Julchen, she talks a lot and openly about it but in the same way I'm not always thinking about the fact that I'm aspie or a latina, I didn't make Julchen think about her gender all the time, only when it comes out for some reason. Also, let me make it clear, the genitalia of a person isn't of your business and the only reason why I made Julchen comment about hers was because she needed to discuss her future sex life with Rod and sexual organs, obviously, are a important part of the discussion. People's genitalia aren't never of your fucking business unless you're interesting in doing things with it that you, sexual people, do.__

__Anyway, I wanted to make a happy fluffy with those two characters who have struggles that I will never fully understand because of the part that I understand.__

__You see, it's very hard to find fanfictions with sex repulsed but alloromantic aces. Most of the time, they're demi and they happen to find that one person with whom they have a connection and start to long for sex. You don't see many fics in which the person doesn't want sex and never will even if they love you to death. Also, on the few times I managed to find fanfictions with sex repulsed alloromantic aces, the fics were tragic as fuck and gave me the impression that I was seeing the not-ace character portraited as some sort of martyr who suffers a lot for being with someone that wouldn't have sex with them. They just ENDURE it because they love this person so much… That made me sad. I heard so many times that I will never find a guy who will be with me without sex . To think about my partner suffering that much just because he wants to be with me makes me feel awful. I got the impression that trans people also have way too much tragic representations and so when I saw miss Zeplerfer prompt I thought " It would be nice to write a light-hearted, warm fluffy with trans girl Julchen and sex repulsed with hearing disability Rod accepting each other, learning about how to work with their relationship and just having fun in general! ".__

__And that's it! I really, really hope that I transmitted my message efficiently because I would love to write a story with trans youtubers lesbians Julchen and Rebeka with channels about music who try to make a colab video together but keep fighting all the time, lol! I also would love to write more stories with sex-repulsed characters such as myself and characters with disabilities and mental illnesses – because, man, this a very common problem in my family – and asperger syndrome… Well, I hope I will make a good job at those and I hope to make people in these groups smile and be happy with my story as I would be happy to see a happy love story with a sex-repulsed character!^_^__

__If you liked this story, please, give me some feedback with kudos, reviews and etc.! Cya ~__


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